Heavy Impact
by CoGDork
Summary: I fell into another universe and found three things: a new power, a new family, and a new dream. Now I have to master the first, protect the second, and chase the third. Self-Insert.
1. Prologue 1: How We Got Here

**A/N:****_Well, because I don't already have enough fanfics going at once, I'm going to try my hand at a MHA self-insert. I've found I have had mixed results with inserts in the past, and looking back I think I was probably a bit too concerned about what potential readers might think and thus not able to enjoy the simple act of writing. That's not to say that reader opinion doesn't matter to me, just that I'm going to focus on what *I* want to write than how other people think an SI fic should go. I won't make this a Gary Stu-fest, I'll do my best to avoid characters acting OOC, and I'll do what I can to stick to what can reasonably be possible in-universe (aside from the whole insert thing)-but with regards to that last part, I may take the occasional slight liberty for the sake of the story I want to write._**

_**In other words, if you're looking for a fic that is meticulously researched with the intent to make something unique, clever, flawlessly written, etc., turn back now. If, on the other hand, you just want to read something fun while keeping the MST3k mantra in mind, sit back and enjoy!**_

* * *

_Just what I needed right now; a villain with a troublesome quirk._

The Symbol of Peace was doing his best to keep his signature smile up; it had been less than a year since the battle that had ruined his body, and while he was still more than a match for all but the most powerful villains he was most definitely not back to full strength yet... at least, whatever would pass for full strength after the injuries he had received. Ordinarily, he could have smashed this villain flat before the scoundrel could even use his quirk, but at the moment...

"What's wrong, 'All Might'? You haven't hit me once! Come on, charge me again!"

"As you wish! DETROOOOOOIIIIT—"

Before All Might could get even a few feet toward the enemy, he found himself landing right back where he started; clearly, this "Warp Master" lived up to his name. The nature of that warping, though, still escaped him somewhat.

_No sign of any portals or something like that; I just can't seem to travel any distance no matter how many times I charge at him. I keep ending up at the same spot... it's not illusion, but whatever it is it's really starting to piss me off. Maybe..._

All Might, acting on his hypothesis, quickly leapt to the left, landing and planting his feet against a nearby building before shoving off toward his foe again... only to find himself hurtling in the opposite direction.

_Hmph. Now I see... it's not teleportation, he's twisting space itself. A dangerous quirk indeed... but it's clearly not passive. This time, he didn't use it on me until I was about to close in on him from a different direction; that means he had to guess where I was coming from and target the area I was going to pass through. In other words... _

The smile nearly slipped. _In other words, I can't worry about my injuries. I have to stop holding back and put him down before he can react to my movements. Hopefully I don't make my injuries worse..._

All Might looked up at the smugly grinning villain. "Ha. You think you've won, Warp Master? I was just warming up! Time to show you what a pro hero can REALLY do!"

A small hurricane swept the immediate area as the Symbol of Peace vanished from Warp Master's sight in an instant; the villain hardly had time to be surprised at the impossible speed before the smiling Symbol of Peace was right in his face, fist held back.

"As I thought! You can't warp space right next to you—it's a distance attack!"

"NO! Nonononono!" The panic on Warp Master's face was palpable, though the obvious insanity was just as clearly displayed. "I won't let you take me in! I WON'T LET YOU!"

Just as All Might's fist connected, Warp Master raised his hands and strained his power to its maximum limit... and without realizing it, tapped into power he never knew he possessed. The world around them twisted and contorted, and then the disturbance spread out like a shockwave, like ripples on a pond. As they spread out, cracks appeared in the sky, the ground, and elsewhere, opening up into holes in space itself that began to suck in or spit out whatever got too close.

And Warp Master was falling right toward one of those portals, along with All Might himself. The former screamed in terror and pain, a scream that was silenced the moment he passed through; thinking quickly, All Might fired off a smash, causing a shockwave of air that would hopefully stop his momentum enough to avoid following his enemy. It worked... but just barely, and he had to struggle against the power of the event horizon even as the portal began to close. As he struggled, he looked up, and saw something that horrified him.

Three bodies emerged from a portal in the sky—a young man, an elderly woman, and a small child—all three falling among slightly different trajectories. If they hit the ground from that height, they would die, but that wasn't what horrified All Might.

What horrified him was that due to the circumstances—the portal he was struggling to escape from, his waning strength, the speed and direction of their fall—he knew he would not be able to save them all.

Without hesitation, the Symbol of Peace made his choice, pushing off the ground with everything he had in order to escape the pull of the rapidly-shrinking hole in space, hurtling toward the smallest form...

* * *

It happened out of nowhere, on what was supposed to be a happy occasion.

I had just turned 18 and was holding my high school diploma with pride as I walked with my parents to their waiting car. I had initially wanted to drive my own car to the ceremony, but my mom and dad insisted that they drive me to school one last time, for the sake of memory. I couldn't deny them that.

"So, how's it feel?"

"Pretty good," I replied, smiling back at my dad. "It would have been a little less embarrassing if mom didn't cry and shout my name when I got this."

Mom wiped her tears away before smirking at me. "Oh hush. Can't a mother show emotion when her little boy finally graduates?"

"Most mothers don't shout out 'Oh, my baby's a man!' at the top of their lungs."

Dad chuckled. "Well, if that's the way you feel about us old folks being happy for their son, maybe we should go out to dinner without you?"

We laughed in unison. As embarrassing as that moment was, I couldn't help but be moved a little by it anyway; I had struggled with emotion a bit myself when they called my name. Knowing they felt so much that they couldn't help but show it meant a lot to me.

And that was the last happy memory I would ever have of them.

In a moment burned into my brain forever, a hole appeared. It had no entrance or exit, it shimmered in and out of existence, it was only half-visible, but hole is the only word that could describe it, for we all fell into it.

Inside the hole, nothing made sense; up was down was left was right, today was tomorrow was yesterday, and I couldn't tell if I was falling, rolling, rising, or staying still. I can't remember much of what I saw, aside from my hands; at one second, they were my own, the next they belonged to an infant, and then those of a middle-aged man. My screams shifted as well, from the terrified cry of a toddler to the helpless shrieks of a shriveled old man, and sometimes they seemed to be everything in between, all at once. I don't know how long I stayed in that hell; all I know is that I blacked out after a while.

The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground, my head tilted to the side, my body strange and weak to me; looking at my hand, I saw that of a small child; my head was swimming, and my memory was hazy. I knew my name, I knew vaguely where I had come from, and while I didn't quite know how old I really was I knew that whatever age I was now wasn't my original age; any thoughts beyond that flew out of my head when I looked up at a smiling face. I knew that face from somewhere, but in that moment I couldn't place where; the face was that of an impossibly-large muscular man in a colorful costume, smiling down at me. The smile was not a happy one, though; it held a great deal of sadness and sympathy in it.

"Don't be afraid, kid... everything will be alright." The voice was soft and comforting, but carried the same sadness as the smile. "Just keep looking at me..."

Puzzled at his words, I looked around anyway, only to see why he didn't want me to turn my gaze from his smile.

Two bodies, nearly flattened from impact, lay some ways away; one was a young man, one an elderly woman, but in an instant I knew exactly who they were.

"Mom... Dad..."

The words were barely a whisper when they escaped, and I nearly choked trying to get them out. I wanted to cry out, to rush over there to shake them awake, but my body wouldn't move no matter what I tried, and instead of a scream I found myself simply opening and closing my mouth, begging for words to come out.

"M-m-om... D-dad..."

Again, my words barely made it out of my mouth; the large man held me close in a tight embrace, whispering softly in my ear.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save them. But you're safe, and you'll stay safe. I promise you, everything will be alright... somehow..."

As I shivered in his grasp, my treacherous mouth finally obeyed my commands, and I screamed at the top of my lungs. No words came out—at least, none that were intelligible through the cries and shrieks and tears. The large man kept his hold on me, patting me on the back or stroking my hair, trying in vain to calm me down, telling me—in a voice that knew otherwise—that everything would be alright, because he was here.

* * *

One of the hardest things about being a superhero was the simple fact that you couldn't save everybody. As the world's Symbol of Peace, this weighed more heavily on All Might than on others; One For All gave him unparalleled strength, speed, and endurance, and yet there were times when even that simply wasn't enough. This wasn't the first time he'd had to comfort a crying child whose entire world had been so cruelly ripped away from him, and he knew it wouldn't be the last; that being said, how does one even begin to give any comfort at all in such a situation?

_Fear not citizens. Hope has arrived. Because _I _am here._ Those last four words, combined with his smile, were all it took most of the time. _Everything will be just fine. Because _I _am here._ But what hope can you give to someone in the deepest depths of grief and despair? How do you assuage the fears of someone whose existence was in shambles? How can you possibly say that everything will be fine when their life has been completely shattered? And yet, All Might continued saying the words to the wailing child, because those words were all he had at the moment.

At first, the child referring to the two other victims as his mother and father confused him; the ages were far too disparate for such a thing to be possible. It only took a few more seconds to decipher, though; clearly, whatever Warp Master did, the villain had twisted both space _and_ time, and these three were victims of that awful power. It was even possible that the child he was holding wasn't quite a child... but that no longer mattered. What was done, was done. And All Might knew that it could easily get much worse.

_These three aren't Japanese, I can definitely see that; the boy spoke with an American English accent. I'll try to see if there's any record of him or his family, but if not... he'll be a ward of the state. _

All Might had seen wards of the state before. The care and treatment of orphans had improved greatly since the 21st century, particularly in Japan; that being said, the system was still not perfect, and he had seen time and time again what that system could do to a child, what it would likely do to this child.

He couldn't save the boy's parents, and he most certainly couldn't restore them to life. But he'd be damned if he let the child's life be ruined further, not when he could help it.

Grabbing a phone from a pocket on his costume, he dialed an old friend. "Koji? It's Toshinori. Listen, depending on the next couple of days I might have to ask you to pull a few strings for me... yeah, it's about a kid. I'll fill you in later... thank you. You're a good man and a good friend. I'll talk to you soon."

All Might had just enough time to get the boy to the nearest police station before he had to leave lest anyone see his muscles fade away into his new skeletal form; the moment he was certain no one could see him, Toshinori Yagi did the last thing All Might could ever be seen doing, the thing he couldn't help but do when he had failed someone as thoroughly as he had that day.

He wept.


	2. Prologue 2: Complications

My memories didn't come back all at once. They were more like a gradual trickle, with the occasional bit of information fading back in due to some form of trigger. As I sat in a waiting room at the police station, still crying a bit, I looked up to see a rather skeletal-looking man in a suit and tie; there was something familiar about him that I couldn't place at the time. Instead of sitting in the chair opposite me, he came around to my side of the table and knelt next to my chair, speaking in fluent, unaccented English.

"Hey. You're the kid All Might mentioned, right? I'm Toshinori Yagi, a friend of his. Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?"

I nodded, but didn't say anything.

"Okay then. All Might told me the whole story, but there are a few details I need to know. First off, what's your name?"

"C-Casey Kendall..."

A smile from the man. "Well, it's very nice to meet you, Casey! Where are you from?"

That took a second longer. "...America."

"Could you be more specific? Where in America?"

I tried, I really did, but it was all still coming up blank for me. "Tennessee. Don't remember what city," I muttered, sniffling a bit.

The smile went away at that answer, but Mr. Yagi (as I mentally labeled him at that time) kept up his questions.

"Don't worry, that will all come back to you soon, I'm sure of it. Now, from what I can see and what the doctors said during your brief checkup, you look to be somewhere around eight years old, but All Might said something about time warping. Is that your real age?"

"No, it's... it's... I don't remember. I'm not eight though."

"Alright. What's your quirk, Casey?"

I perked up in confusion; the word sounded familiar, but I still couldn't quite remember what it meant. "Quirk?"

His frown deepened further. "Your quirk... your superpower. Almost everyone has one. What's yours?"

As I processed the information, I looked down at my feet. "Don't have 'em."

"So you're quirkless... that's perfectly fine, nothing to be shamed of. After all, I'm quirkless, too—"

"No, I mean superpowers aren't real where I come from. Just made-up stories in comic books and movies and stuff."

Mr. Yagi's expression turned to a mixture of surprise and deep worry; putting a hand on my shoulder, he spoke slowly and clearly. "Okay Casey, I need you to try really, really hard to remember this last thing: what year do you think it is?"

_That _I remembered. "2019... why?"

* * *

Toshinori Yagi waited outside the room for a while before the people he was expecting finally arrived; one wore a brown trench coat with a police badge, the other a suit and a badge with the Japanese CPS logo on it.

"Glad to see you, Tsukauchi; you too, Nakagai."

The two men nodded with sad smiles, the former speaking first. "Same, though I wish the circumstances were different. Has the kid said anything about who he is?"

"Yeah, and you're not going to like it. His name's Casey Kendall, and he's from America—obviously-but aside from one other highly important detail, that's all he can remember."

"Hm... I suppose I've had worse to go on with regards to finding records," the other man said. "What's that highly important detail?"

Toshinori sighed. "Guys, what I'm about to tell you now needs to be kept a secret, just between the three of us. The year he came from: 2019. The kid is over a hundred and fifty years and an entire ocean away from home. He doesn't even know what a Quirk is."

There was a shocked silence between all three gentlemen, and it hung in the air for some time; it was Koji who broke the silence with a frustrated sigh. "Then there's no way we can send him to the Americans; they lost nearly all their civil records during the big war around the time Quirks first started appearing. The kid might as well not have a name at all, for all he exists in legal terms."

Tsukauchi nodded sadly. "I'm guessing that's why you called us here, huh? You want Nakagai here to use his position with CPS to get him a home as fast as possible so he doesn't have to go through the system, and you want me to cover for both of you."

"Yeah, but that's not the only reason. Koji, could you teach him Japanese, at least up to what an 8-year-old should know? His options for adoption won't be too good if he can't speak the language."

The man in question nodded, stepping into the room with the boy.

* * *

**Koji Nakagai**

**Quirk:** _**Transmission**_

_**He can instantly transmit anything he knows to anyone else, and can sort his memory and knowledge like a filing cabinet—the perfect quirk for a social worker! The transmission is one-way, though, and if he gives too much information at a time to one person it can seriously mess up their minds.**_

* * *

As Nakagai worked his magic, Toshinori turned back to his friend. "I don't think I have to tell you that the press will be all over this incident when they hear about it. I'm fine with that—I have to deal with those hyenas every damn day, just like any other hero—but this boy shouldn't have to deal with cameras and lights shoved in his face, and he definitely doesn't need constant questions from idiots who don't care if they keep him from whatever semblance of a normal life he might end up with here..."

"Don't worry," Tsukauchi responded, holding up his hand. "I hushed up your fight with All For One and your injuries; I think I can protect the kid from the media vultures. Just be sure to get yourself checked out as soon as possible in case you opened up those injuries of yours."

Before the incognito pro could respond, the police officer interrupted him. "Don't you go making up excuses or tall tales, now; I know the way you think, Toshinori. I know you feel like you had to help, and it's because you did that this kid is even alive. But you shouldn't be doing hero work at all until your doctor, whoever they are, clears it; the world can't afford to lose its Symbol of Peace."

"Heh. I'd love to argue with that, but you're right, as always; I'll be more careful about that in the future." With that, Toshinori walked away, waving to his friend. "Take care of the kid, will you? The further he is from All Might's general vicinity, the less likely the press will connect him with the incident, so I can't exactly know where Nakagai places him; I know I wouldn't be able to keep from checking on him constantly. Until next time, old friend. Give Nakagai my regards."

Not long after Toshinori left, Nakagai emerged from the room to speak with the detective in a slight whisper. "I've given him what I could, but he still won't know a lot that kids his age generally do; there's only so much information I can transmit to such a young mind without doing harm, and this kid's had more than enough trouble today."

"Well, that should make the whole adoption process a little easier, at least... how are you going to go about getting him a home?"

"I already have someone in mind; she's an old friend of mine from our school years. She has a kid already, but I don't think she'd turn away a case like his; aside from you and Toshinori, I honestly can't think of anyone as kind-hearted as she is, and seeing as she's clearly passed that on to her kid it should be exactly the environment Casey needs."

"That's good," Tsukauchi responded. "But don't tell me their names, okay? Plausible deniability and all that."

The two men looked into the room where the subject of their conversation waited, no longer crying but still relatively shell-shocked; both gave a silent prayer, to whoever was listening, that the horrors of today would heal in time...

* * *

Suddenly knowing Japanese was weird, even considering the fact that I'd still have to learn a lot about writing and reading it along with other kids. That was the weirder thing, though: 'other kids'. I still didn't remember my original age, but I knew it wasn't this young. That being said, I definitely felt smaller in more ways than just physical; much as I knew stuff no kid should know, aside from prodigies, I couldn't help but look at the world from the perspective of a young child, nor could I stop my emotional state from following suit. 'The mind is a plaything of the body', as they say, and I was finding that to be at least somewhat true. After the interviews were done, I got sent to a doctor for a full checkup to follow up on the basic 'does it hurt here, or here, or here' one I received at the police station. The doctors said I was normal, and wondered what my quirk was; Mr. Nakagai responded that he didn't know yet, and neither did I. The doctor bought the lie, but Mr. Nakagai had a strange look when the doctor said "his quirk must not be an obvious one, we'll find out in time" or something to that effect. I stayed with him for a few days on a temporary basis; over the course of that time, I learned a bit more about this strange new world from his quirk, though I held back my frustration that he only let me know stuff a kid would know. Four days after I had arrived, I was sitting at the apartment window when Mr. Nakagai entered the room.

"Casey," he said, speaking Japanese, "would you please come in the living room? There's someone I'd like you to meet."

I nodded and followed him into the living room, where a woman and a small child—both with dark green hair—waited for me.

"Inko, this is Casey. Casey, meet Ms. Midoriya and her son, Izuku. You'll be staying with them from now on."

_Midoriya... Izuku Midoriya... the face and name is definitely familiar. Every day my memories keep coming back, hopefully this one will soon enough._

* * *

For a while, he didn't know who he was, or where he was; all he knew was that the _when_ was definitely different, but _how_ he knew that was yet another mystery to him. As he slowly tried to breathe, it all came back to him.

_My name... my name is Naboru Kinan. Warp Master... _

The events that had passed before he had lost consciousness came flooding back into his mind soon after, eliciting a shriek of pure, unadulterated terror at the smiling monstrosity that would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life; as the panic subsided, however, another thought crossed his mind: the power he had unleashed back there was _definitely_ not normal. He had never really tried out his quirk to any real degree for some reason, until today—at least, as far as "today" referred to his own experience, as he could tell a long time had passed between the moment he fell and the moment he woke up—but now that he knew the potential depths of his quirk, a strange feeling of anticipation came over him.

_Power..._

A smile crossed his face.

_Real power..._

A laugh escaped his lips.

_The power of a God..._

He clenched his fist.

_Power that I'll master. I'll master it and I'll be a God forever. I'll be a God and everyone will have to do what I say or I'll wipe them from existence._ _I'll be a God and no one will stop me, no one will come near me or I'll tear them apart with my power..._

Grinning widely and occasionally giggling, Warp Master slinked away, neither knowing nor caring that he was muttering his thoughts out loud.

_I'll be a God. I'll be a God. I'll be a God..._


	3. Prologue 3: Understanding

**A/N:****_I seem to be on a roll; this usually happens when I first start a fic. I zoom through the first few chapters as the initial excitement of the idea is still fresh in my mind, then I eventually slow down to a relatively consistent but slower rate as I take more time to develop what I've established. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know, but it's just how my writing process works, and half this project is me getting back to just plain "do whatever the hell I want with this fic", so writing in the way that comes most naturally to me makes sense, I guess. In any case, once the prologue is done we'll finally get into the main MHA storyline._**

* * *

As it turned out, I was just in time for Izuku to begin second grade... and as an adopted child, I was enrolled right along with him. I was slowly starting to remember bits and pieces of what I knew of the world I had found myself in, as well as what I knew from before I got here. One thing that I immediately recalled was that Japan, at least in my original universe and time, had a not-unwarranted reputation for ethnocentrism and mild-to-moderate xenophobia; thankfully, this had mostly gone away in light of the fact that it's fairly difficult to worry about physical appearance when you regularly have brunch with a guy who has four arms or a bird's head. All that aside, I still didn't quite remember my original age; that, combined with the brain chemistry of my 8-year-old body, made it surprisingly easy to fall naturally into the role of a little kid, for better and for worse.

One of the perks of growing up again is that everything that isn't bad is automatically awesome and cool. Bonus points if it's something you've never seen before. Another is that whenever you're in "play" mode, you feel a sort of non-stop creative fire that lets you imagine entire worlds and adventures that an adult mind wouldn't be able to do anymore, and none of it has to even make a lick of sense; if I had to guess, that's the part people always think of when they talk about wanting to connect with their inner child. The next time you get that urge, do yourself a favor:

"Hey, look, it's quirkless' dumb foreigner friend!"

Punch yourself. Kids can be awful.

I had been running around the school playground imagining I was an astronaut on the back of a space dinosaur when I saw some kid walk up to me out of absolutely nowhere, giggling with the most obnoxious smirk on his face. Look up "extremely punchable" in the dictionary and you'd see this brat's picture.

"My name's Casey M... er, Kendall," I said, stumbling a bit on the name. "If you can't say it right, you might want to keep your mouth shut, otherwise people might notice how stupid you are."

Yeah, my wit wasn't at my best due to the whole "stuck in kid mode" thing. Thankfully, as far as it fell short of grown-up standards of insults it was still far enough above the second-grade level to thoroughly burn the little brat. Unfortunately, he recovered after a few seconds, and had a ready response.

"Ha! You were about to say 'Midoriya', weren't you? You think getting the mom of some quirkless loser gives you the right to be here? You really are a dumb foreigner!"

_Okay, now you're pissing me off._ Truth be told, I still wasn't comfortable using anything but my original last name; like I said, Japanese society had mostly moved past the lack of acceptance of foreigners—save for this little shit—but something about being a non-Japanese with a Japanese last name still felt too weird at the time. Besides, it had only been about a week since my adoption, and my real family's deaths were still on my mind.

"If you're done using the only insult you know, go away and leave me alone."

"Yeah! Leave my brother alone!"

I whipped around to see Izuku standing behind me, desperately trying not to look scared. I might have been reluctant to fully accept my new living situation, but Izuku practically embraced the idea that I was his brother the instant he saw me.

"Or what, quirkless? You and your friend gonna stop me? Bakugo's been going too easy on you. Maybe I oughtta teach you your place!"

With that, the kid picked up a rock in one hand that a kid his age would normally need two hands for—that must've been his quirk—and lobbed it straight at Izuku's head. Now, I may not have been comfortable calling him brother back yet, but I wasn't going to let him get hurt, either; unfortunately, my little legs didn't move as fast as they should've, and instead of pushing him out of the way I just ended up putting myself between him and the rock.

It struck me right on the jaw... only to drop straight down to the ground the instant it touched me. I didn't even feel a thing, save for a bizarre sensation of absorbing something.

The bully had an expression not unlike a horribly confused and not-terribly bright hog. "Huh? What happened?"

As the brat looked on in surprise, I felt an anger well up inside me at the attempted stoning—the strangeness of the situation temporarily forgotten—and charged straight at him, rearing back for a punch. The bully ducked at the last second, my fist hitting the brick wall behind him instead... which got a few surface cracks from the blow.

The brat ran away as I stared at my hands in shock; Izuku, on the other hand, practically teleported to my side, squee-ing over what I had just done and speaking at a mile a minute.

"WOW! Your quirk is cool! How's it work? Is it just strength and endurance, or is it something else? Can you do it whenever, or is it triggered? What's it called? Is it—"

The end-of-recess bell rang, cutting off his rapid-fire interrogation. My adult mind told me that this bore investigation... but that could wait until after class.

* * *

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1**

_Izuku was almost begging to add my quirk to his hero research journal, but I'm pretty curious as well, so I've decided to start my own. He knows a lot about quirks for someone who doesn't have one, and he's super-excited to help me figure out mine; we decided to start with just the basics today. Together, we grabbed a big rock just outside our apartment building and I tried punching it; the only thing that happened was that I hurt my hand. It's not bad, it's just a little sore, but that's just because I held back a bit. It's pretty obvious I don't just have regular super-strength, though. We sat a while trying to figure it out, but it started getting dark and we had to come in for dinner. Ms. Midoriya made rice with beef; I've never had it before, but it was really good. Tomorrow's Saturday, so maybe we can figure it out then?_

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 2**

_We kept trying to find out how to trigger my weird super-strength, but nothing happened until I remembered something; when that rock hit me, it fell to the ground in a weird way, and I felt like I sucked in something or absorbed something that made me feel stronger. I told Izuku to punch me; it took me a long time to get him to do it because he didn't want to hit me. When he finally did, his fist just stopped the instant it touched me, and I felt the same sensation. After that, I tried hitting the rock again; it didn't break or even crack a little bit, but I didn't hurt my hand as bad this time. I think we found something. We told Ms. Midoriya, and she said she'd take me to the doctor in a couple of days to see if they can figure out my quirk and give it a name or whatever, but I still want to know a little more first. Tomorrow, then._

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 3**

_I think we're getting closer to figuring out my quirk; this time, we found another, smaller rock and I had Izuku throw it at me. I got a little bit of that weird feeling from it, just a tiny bit more than when Izuku punched me, but not as much as when that kid threw the big one at my head. I told him to throw it again, but this time it went a little wide; out of pure reflex, I reached out to catch it, only for my hand to brush against it. The moment I touched it, the rock fell straight down and I felt that feeling again. I could feel something building up in me, but just to be sure I had Izuku punch me again—this time, as hard as he could—and when I punched the big rock, it finally cracked a bit. Apparently, I get stronger when I get hit or when I touch something that's moving; the thing we're missing is why the stuff that hits me or that I touch stops in such a weird way when I make contact. I think I know what it is that I'm absorbing to make that happen, but I can't remember the word for it; it's one of those things that I used to know but forgot. It's on the tip of my tongue, though, so I'll probably remember it soon._

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 4**

_Ms. Midoriya took us several places; first, we went to a special doctor who analyzes quirks, and I showed him this journal; it sort of irritated me when he told me what a good job I did writing this journal (in the same tone of voice that an adult would say, "what a smart little boy!"), but thankfully it made his analysis go by quicker. Once that was done, we went to a government building to register my quirk and get a legal name for it. I'm gonna be honest, I'm actually sort of excited to have it on paper, so just for the heck of it I'm gonna write it here, too:_

* * *

_**Quirk: Kinesis**_

_**Can absorb kinetic energy upon physical contact, either by being struck or by touching a moving object; can then release kinetic energy by adding it to physical attacks**_

* * *

_Pretty basic, and Izuku and I intend to do some more research on it as time goes by, but for now it feels good to have an official name for it. 'Kinesis'... I like it. Izuku thinks we ought to try to become pro heroes together; I recalled comics from my old world like Batman where the hero didn't have any superpowers and yet managed to kick butt, so I've encouraged him that even a quirkless person could definitely be a pro hero. I guess we'll find out one day..._

* * *

Inko was doing some late-night TV watching when she heard screaming and shouting from Casey's room; Nakagai had told her he was traumatized and that this might happen, but the maternal panic still kicked in enough that she ran as fast as possible to his room. Izuku was up as well, worried about his adoptive brother, and that worry only increased at the sight that greeted them upon opening the door:

Casey was thrashing about in his sleep, shouting in frightened English about his parents, tears flowing from his eyes; in what seemed like the space of a heartbeat, she turned on the lights and rushed over to the bed, sitting on it and holding the boy in a tight hug.

"Shh... it's okay, Casey. You're safe, it was just a dream, you're safe... I've got you, it's okay..."

It took some time for the poor child to stop shaking. Her heart nearly broke for him when he looked up at her, tears still in his eyes.

"Th-thank you M... Ms. Midoriya. I th-think I'm okay now..."

She put a smile on to cover her sadness at the way he addressed her. _Koji did warn me about that too, though, _she reassured herself; _he just isn't ready to call me that. I'll give it time..._

"Are you sure, honey? I can get you some juice or milk if you need something to help you sleep better..."

The boy shook his head, clearly uncomfortable with the thought of needing help to sleep.

"No, I'm fine now. I can get back to sleep on my own..."

Inko couldn't help but chuckle. "Alright, alright. Just don't be afraid to come to me if you ever need anything, alright? This is your home, just like it is Izuku's. For now, just get your sleep; you still have school in the morning."

After Izuku stopped crying over his brother, she ushered the former back to bed as well. She turned the TV off and pulled a chair over near the boys' rooms, and made sure to stay there for a while longer just to be safe.

* * *

_**We're almost done with the prologue; the next chapter will finish off the early childhood and initiate a timeskip to Junior High, then the chapter after that will be the first section of the canon story. Nearly all the SI's memories will have returned by that point, so don't worry about him being too clueless to try and mess with canon as SI stories do. See you then!**_


	4. Prologue 4: Family

**A/N:****_Just to let you guys know in advance—by a chapter or two, no less—there will be NO Perv-Grape (aka Mineta) in this fic. He won't even be referenced, because honestly, screw that utterly useless annoying lech._**

* * *

I sat on a chair in the principal's office, swinging my legs back and forth as I waited for my inevitable punishment for doing absolutely nothing wrong. One of the things I recall from my old world was that I was bullied a lot there, and while my mother and father were always understanding—as were the teachers—the teachers always seemed to care more about how the school looked for it, and often punished both the bully _and_ the victim just for causing a scene. That never sat right with me; I thought for sure that things might be better here.

"That stupid foreign child nearly broke every bone in my baby's body! Expel him, now, or I'll sue your school for every yen you have!"

Turns out I was wrong, particularly when your bully has a super-rich spoiled heiress for a mom. The bully's mom screeched, pointing a finger at me again and again while the principal held his hands up and smiled defensively in an infuriatingly meek posture. _God, grow a spine..._ I looked over at the bully in question, who I most decidedly did _not _injure in any way; he was sitting there crying fake tears, his right arm and left leg in casts.

The crazy bully-mom managed to stop ranting long enough for the principal to squeak in a response. "Look, I'm not saying your boy isn't telling the truth—"

"He isn't! He's lying! He tried to trip me while I was walking down the stairs and fell with me! Look, I fell and all I got was a scrape on my knee, how the heck did he fall that same distance and break an arm and a leg?"

_Not to mention the little bastard just smirked at me in between fake cries while the adults were looking the other way... not that you idiots will realize that._

"HOW DARE YOU!" The nutty woman glared at me after hearing my comment; the way she puffed out her cheeks and turned red with anger made her look a bit like a cross between a puffer fish and a tomato. "You little foreigner brat! My baby boy is perfectly innocent!"

"What's going on here? Oh, honey, are you hurt?" Ms. Midoriya finally arrived, quickly running over to my side.

"No, I'm okay. And so is that liar there."

The spineless man-chicken masquerading as a principal barely managed to cut off the crazy lady. "Er, Ms. Midoriya, I'm afraid there was an altercation involving your son—"

"Hmph. 'Son'... foreign gutter-trash is more like it..."

A silence followed the lady's interjection, and I could have sworn the room chilled by five degrees as Ms. Midoriya glared at the lady. "What."

"Ah, please, let's not be too quick to—"

"What did you call him. Say it again."

"I don't have to repeat myself to the likes of you!"

"Yeah! You tell her, mom!"

A hush fell over the room again as the bully's performance slipped in the most hilarious way possible; the little brat, excited at the thought that he might get his way for like the billionth time, had leapt out of his chair onto both legs and hopped up and down.

"Wow," I said, unable to contain myself. "you have a cool quirk. Must be nice, healing so fast..."

This was the last straw, and the first time I had EVER seen Ms. Midoriya angry. Frankly, it's a pretty scary sight. "You b—awful woman!"

"Please, Ms. Midoriya, I know you must be angry—"

"Angry?!" Now it was the principal's turn to be the target of unbridled fury. "I got a call in the middle of work saying that something bad had happened, that Casey was involved, and that there were injuries! I was so terrified that he might have been hurt that I nearly had a heart attack! You could have at least given me more information than that, but then you went ahead and let this woman drag him in here like he was some sort of deviant in need of correcting! And as for you," she said, turning back to the rich lady, "don't you ever refer to him as trash ever again. He is_ not_ trash. He is _my son _and if you don't approve, you can take your boy to some other school."

I was just as stunned as everyone else in the room, particularly at that last part. The rich lady tried one last time to look tough, but it was clear she was scared stiff. "I... I'll sue. I'll sue you for... for..."

"For what? It doesn't take a lawyer to know you don't have a case here. Now I am leaving, and I am taking _my son_ home, and I don't want to see your face ever again."

I looked over at the principal, who somehow looked both ashamed and a little less spineless; with a gulp and a deep bow, he spoke without a quiver in his voice for the first time that whole conversation. "My deepest apologies, Ms. Midoriya. Rest assured, I take full responsibility for this unfortunate incident, and will ensure that Ms. Bakura's son will face serious consequences for his actions."

The principal remained still, not even flinching when the screeching started up again as we left the room; waiting for us in the hall was none other than Izuku, who tackle-hugged me with tears in his eyes.

"Waaahhh! Brother, I was so scared that you were in trouble and that they'd make you leave and that you'd have to leave me here on my own or something and mom would be mad and—!"

"It's okay, sweetie, Casey isn't going anywhere. There was a misunderstanding, that's all, but it's over now." You would never have known that she was scaring a lady half to death less than a minute ago.

We all went out for ice cream before coming home; the whole incident had thrown me for a bit of a loop, and I stayed quiet for the most part, right up until it was time for bed. Once I was under the covers and the goodnight forehead kiss was done with, I found myself thinking about it all one last time. _She got so angry on my behalf... and she called me..._

I spoke up just as she was about to turn out the light. "Um..."

"Yes, honey?"

"I... could I maybe call you mom from now on?"

* * *

**Six Years Later**

I steadied the punching bag and walked over to my computer, picking up my research journal and a pen. _Hm... before quirk, 50.8 kg... roughly my own weight. I'm doing good with technique, at least. _We'd bought a bunch of force sensors, wired them together, glued them to a brick and placed it in a punching bag made for super-strength quirks; the force sensors had been hooked up to my computer, which would read the force of a punch in kilograms so I could add it to the journal. For "kinetic fuel" I just generally had Izuku hit me, but I knew that there had to be a better way to charge up without having to rely on someone else to hit me or throw something...

"CASEY! CASEY! You gotta come quick! There's a villain that popped up nearby!"

I looked up from the journal. "Really? Anyone famous?"

"No, but they're saying he's got a gigantification quirk of some kind. He's over at Tatooin Station right now!"

I sighed. "You know, you're lucky mom is out shopping right now or she'd bolt the house shut the way you're yelling about a villain in the area. Besides, weren't we gonna do quirk research today before class? I just punched in the base numbers..."

"Oh come on, bro! They say Death Arms _and_ Kamui Woods are in the area too!"

_Oh. Well, that was sooner than I expected... main plot time._

I had gained nearly all of my memories back over the last few years; I still didn't quite remember how old I was to begin with exactly—definitely high school age, though—but other than that I had pretty much everything back... including the knowledge that I was currently living in an anime, and that my very own brother was the star. Unfortunately, as that information only started coming back to me about a year before, I didn't have much time to prepare or plan—not that there was much I could do anyway, aside from continue our quirk research. "Heh, I always wanted to meet Death Arms myself... okay, let's go!"

As we reached the station, I recalled the fight as it happened in the anime; pretty impressive stuff. When it's in real life, though? Impressive doesn't remotely cut it. The craziest thing was watching guys like Kamui Woods move. _As far as I know, the guy's quirk has zip effect on his base agility, and yet he's leaping and running around like Spider-man. It's crazy to think that acrobatics that would be superhuman in the other world are perfectly achievable with training alone in this one, even for a quirkless person. I _have _to learn how to move like that..._

As per canon, the show was over very quickly after that when Mount Lady burst in and stole the spotlight; once Izuku was done with his motor-mouth analysis mode, we made our way to school for our regular classes. We managed to make it there just in time to beat the teacher... but not enough to avoid Lord Explosion Murder himself deliberately bumping into Izuku on the way into the classroom.

"Outta the way, Deku."

"Ah! Kacchan..."

Even before I remembered anything about him, I hated Bakugo from the very first day I attended the second grade with Izuku; the bully I had to deal with was bad enough, but at least that one was a pushover when you got right down to it. Bakugo, on the other hand? He was just plain petty—the no-reason-shoulder-bump a daily occurrence—and yet Izuku still looked up to the asshole. I never understood it, but once I got my quirk I at least figured I could take some of the heat off; one thing I had learned was that it was very easy to redirect Bakugo's temper away from Izuku, and all it ever took was a mild comment that hit one or more of his many, many pride buttons.

"You know, _Kacchan,"_ I said, making sure to put as much emphasis on the -chan as possible, "It's okay to say 'excuse me' when you stumble into someone."

"STUMBLE?! Shut up, you damn science nerd! I don't stumble!"

Yeah, I had just violated Bakugo Pride Button #5,702: indirectly accusing him of being a klutz, combined with #812, suffix abuse. And yes, I'd cataloged every little trigger I could find; the list was up to nearly six thousand and showed no signs of being close to the end. I closed the conversation with #214: turning and walking away with a chuckle while he's trying to insult me. Ordinarily, this last one would present a severe risk to life and limb, with an increased likelihood of explosive death, but I'd found that even Bakugo wasn't dumb enough to cause trouble when the teacher was about to enter the class. He seethed in silent rage as the teacher began talking, and as usual I couldn't help but glare at the back of his head.

_As far as I'm concerned, the only thing you're good for is being pointed at things that need exploding. I don't care about canon, I don't care if Izuku won't stop pretending you're worth his admiration; as long as you treat my brother like this, I'm never going to acknowledge you as anything other than a bully._

Unfortunately, I could only do so much to shield Izuku from popular scorn. Even before my memories of the series returned to me, I supported Izuku and tried my best to keep him from being isolated from the rest of our peers; I managed to make some lasting friendships with a few classmates, and at first that seemed to alleviate the problem. Sadly, it ended up making things almost worse than before; true, when the teacher mentioned that Izuku had intentions of going to UA, only half the class laughed at him as opposed to the entire class in canon. The downside was that the other half, instead of defending my brother's dreams, simply responded with sorrowful, pitying shakes of the head. Much as he cried about it sometimes, Izuku could handle the outright scorn toward his dreams from people like Bakugo who treated him with hatred; at least then he could probably tell himself they were just being mean, they didn't know what they were talking about, that if they got to know him better they'd see he had what it took. But the sight of friends doubting him, of treasured companions clearly thinking there was no hope for him... _that,_ I knew, was what genuinely hurt him. None of those people were going to UA. I knew there would be people there that he could easily bond with—I definitely looked forward to meeting a few of them myself—but from his perspective, the only people his age aside from me who were remotely nice to him were going elsewhere, and if he followed his dreams he'd have to leave them all behind.

And yet, he persisted; I'd always been amazed at how no matter what, he never truly loses all hope. Even in the darkest hour, there's always that little spark left that he somehow manages to hold onto and turn into more drive to succeed. That, above all else, is why I never doubted him even for a second, even long before I knew what he was destined to be.

In case you haven't guessed, this is the story of how my brother and I became two of the world's greatest heroes.

* * *

_**This marks the end of the prologue; the next chapter will begin the main story. See you then!**_


	5. Preparatory Stress

**A/N:****_Sorry for the abruptness of the pivotal moment from canon where Izuku acts like a hero for the first time; I didn't just want to rehash canon, but at the same time I couldn't find any real way for the SI to meaningfully interact with the moment in a way that made sense. I'm also relying heavily on google searches and my own horribly-flawed math for the science and numbers, so if there's any fault there let me know and feel free to correct me._**

* * *

There are many days where I wish I didn't have knowledge of the world I came from, days where I wish I could just be Izuku's adopted brother and another aspiring hero, without having to concern myself with potential butterfly effects ruining everything. One of the worst things about having that knowledge is that, even when I knew Izuku was going to suffer, there were a number of times where I would have to allow him to suffer just to ensure that things didn't go far worse down the road. Two such incidences occurred that day in our third and last year of Junior high; the first involved Bakugo destroying Izuku's beloved hero journal and throwing it out the window, and the second came not long after that. I had decided to get a quick "bathroom break" just as class ended for the day just as Bakugo made his way over to him, but just to be safe I waited outside the door, listening to the exchange; I was able to hold off intervening on my brother's behalf, even during the moment that Bakugo said the single worst thing he had ever said in his life.

"...pray that you'll be born with a quirk in your next life, and take a swan dive off the roof of the building!"

_If you weren't fully capable of creaming me in a straight-up fight, I'd gladly tear you apart for saying that._

As the asshole left the door, he spared me a smug look in passing at my glare.

"Gonna say something, science nerd? Go kill yourself along with your fake brother."

I may not have been dumb enough to actually try to pick a fight with him, but I wasn't going to let that slide without response.

"Izuku and I _will_ be applying for U.A., and that's final. Go ahead and threaten me like you did my _real_ brother if you don't like it, but there is nothing short of actual death that will stop me or him from getting in. Once we do, enjoy your brief moment in the sun—because I don't care what I have to do, I don't care how long it takes, I will wait until you can't imagine being happier or more proud of yourself, and then _I will make sure every ounce of joy you get from getting into that school turns to shit right in front of your eyes, then and there._ And when that happens, you'll know it's because of what you said to me and him just now."

I would be lying if I didn't flinch when he held his hand out to me and set off a few small explosions about a foot away from my face; beyond that, though I did my damnedest to retain a silent glare at him. Bakugo wasn't impressed, as usual, and left without saying anything else. I walked in to see Izuku doing his best to hide his tears from me and failing miserably; just seeing him like that tore me up inside. The feeling only got worse after we finished walking down to the outside of the school where his ruined notebook lay floating in a koi pond, at which point I made yet another excuse not to be there at a crucial moment in his life; claiming to have forgotten something inside, I told him to head on home and that I would catch up with him later. All so I wouldn't be there when the sludge villain attacked and nearly killed him before All Might rescued him. That meeting was too important to be derailed by my presence, and I knew deep down that just me being there might put everything at risk; All Might and I hadn't crossed paths once between the awful day I entered this world and the day Izuku was destined to meet him, but I had no doubt that the former would recognize me as the kid he rescued. I could easily imagine the exact series of misconceptions he would take from such a meeting:

All Might fails to save the parents of a kid that appears from a portal, not long after the incident which nearly killed him and forced him to seriously consider looking for a successor. The aftermath is exactly the kind a classic Superman-style hero like All Might would blame himself for and carry the guilt of for years to come, along with every other life he's ever failed to save.

The kid shows up again, 6 years later, right in his face, on a day where his frustration at being unable to hero full-time is nearly at a peak, thus bringing up those guilty feelings in a new context.

Then there was the possibility that he assumed I was a time traveler due to my original year prior to the portal, in which case my having a quirk would make even _less_ sense than it already does, adding a nice flavor of the mysteriously impossible; put all that together and you get a perfect storm of coincidences that would potentially seem very meaningful to someone looking for a successor. Which was why, until Izuku went through his encounter with All Might and was offered One for All, I couldn't be anywhere near the latter lest the Symbol of Peace decide to offer his quirk to me instead out of some mistaken sense of destiny where none existed. Now don't get me wrong, it would be very cool to have that sort of power, and I'm at least 80% sure that I would use it properly. If it were still just fiction to me, I would have jumped at the offer.

But it wasn't fiction. It was real. And that's what made every action I took to stand by and let Izuku nearly suffocate to death tear my heart to shreds; no matter how necessary it was, I would always hate myself for letting my brother get hurt. What kind of family deliberately and knowingly allows bad, even life-threatening things to happen to one another, even if it's to serve the purpose of a "long game"?

_Izuku... I can't believe I'm thinking this, but it's for your own good. You deserve One for All, more than anyone else on the planet. You need it, and the world needs you. Not me, not anyone else, YOU._

Once I was satisfied that a sufficient amount of time had passed for Izuku to pass under the bridge where the fated meeting would happen—it was on our regular path home from school, so guessing the correct timing based on previous travel times wasn't too big a stretch—I gathered up the stuff I had deliberately left behind and began walking slowly in the general direction of home, hating myself the entire first half of the way. The second half was interrupted when my guilty conscience, too late, told my brain to go fuck itself and made me turn right around and run towards Tatooin Market Square, where I knew Izuku was about to do something both very brave and very, very stupid.

I arrived just in time to witness the finale, and see Bakugo and Izuku get rescued by the greatest hero that the world has ever known.

* * *

As All Might finished explaining his unique quirk to young Midoriya, the green-haired boy in question reeled from the revelations; for a moment, the Symbol of Peace worried that the waterworks might start up again.

Thankfully, the boy held it in for the moment. "But why would you choose to give _me_ a gift like _that? _What if I can't live up to it?"

All Might was about to respond before a voice startled them both. "Just take it, Izuku."

The source of the voice stepped out of a nearby alleyway, revealing a young American boy with dark, shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. Something about the boy seemed strangely familiar to All-Might...

Izuku stammered in surprise at the newcomer. "B-bro?! H-h-how long have you been standing there?!"

"Since he told you what I've been trying to help you convince the world since the day we met," the child responded before turning to look at the weakened Symbol of Peace; "Sorry for eavesdropping, but... well, I was trying to catch up to my adoptive brother here and couldn't help but overhear his dreams coming true."

Memories of a thoroughly awful day flashed through Toshinori's head as the puzzle pieces slowly fit together. "Wait... you're..."

"Casey Midoriya," the boy said. "I never did get a chance to thank you for saving my life."

Izuku was slowly putting some things together as well. "Wait... you mean All Might was the one who saved your life when your... when that happened?"

As Casey nodded gravely, clearly trying to shake away the permanent scars of the past, All Might couldn't help but sigh in relief. "That day... I can't imagine how awful it was for you. I failed you that day, and when I decided not to continue checking up on you for fear of my fame intruding on your life, I cursed myself for it; I couldn't help but think some part of me was just afraid to look and be reminded of your parents, of your tears, or to see some other tragedy befall you. I'm glad you found a new family, a place to belong..."

Casey smiled. "I still miss them, but it wasn't your fault. It did take me a little while to get used to calling myself Midoriya instead of Kendall... but once I got into the habit of it, it made the hurt fade a bit. In any case, back to the whole 'making my brother's greatest dream a reality' thing; you don't have to worry about me blabbing about your secret. I owe you everything, after all. And Izuku, if you don't _immediately_ say 'yes' to the offer I'm gonna seriously question your mental health..."

Izuku's eyes started filling up with tears again. _Heh, this kid really is super-emotional..._

To All Might's surprise, though, the boy in question quickly dried his tears and stood up straight, a look of determination plastered across his face. "Okay, I'll do it. Yes!"

* * *

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,738**

_Training for UA began yesterday; Izuku's training should go a lot faster and more smoothly than it would have otherwise considering I insisted we do physical training on a semi-regular basis about a year ago, not long after I remembered the whole 'anime' thing. We're not anywhere near where we should be—Izuku definitely still needs to work his butt off if he wants to get ripped enough to handle One for All—but even a tiny bit of extra training will probably make a huge difference in the long run, and we might even get done earlier than in canon, giving more time to prepare. All Might told me he'd be willing to help me train as well—though with the caveat that his first priority would still be to Izuku as his successor—and after learning about my quirk (judging by his expression upon hearing that I had one, that little revelation _definitely_ threw him for one hell of a loop) gave me a membership to a nearby sports facility where batting cages with pitching machines were; it didn't take long for me to figure out what to do with this. _

_The first time getting hit by one of the 100mph pitches from a machine, I got a serious wake-up call as to how far I have to go to make my quirk actually effective; the ball dropped to the ground the moment it hit me, but at the same time I felt... well, overly "full" with regards to the kinetic energy I had absorbed, like it would be a bad idea to take any more in. If I release the energy by punching something—All Might brought over a stack of cinder blocks for that very purpose—then allow myself to get hit again, wash rinse repeat over a long period of time and I should gradually be able to handle storing more and more energy before I get "full". I once read that a fastball at a speed of 100mph hits with the kinetic energy equivalent of roughly 140 joules. Joules seems to be a decent measurement of my "storage capacity" for the time being, since that's already what kinetic energy is measured in; it may not be the exact number of my current limit, but 140j should be close enough to give a rough starting point for the purposes of charting my growth. I'll write down the numbers here whenever they change and I'm not at my computer to put them into the full chart._

_**KE Storage Capacity (j):**_

**[March 8, 2174] **

_140j_

_We have ten months to get ready for the UA Entrance Exams, and I should start working on increasing my storage capacity as well as finding some way to train the active use of my quirk._

* * *

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,739**

_It's been about two weeks since I've been able to actively write in this. School ended just a few days ago, which would normally mean more free time, but Izuku and I are both determined to not let one possible moment of preparation go wasted, so I'm still going to have to be careful with time management here. Both of us are looking a bit more muscular, but All Might says there's still a long ways to go, and that beach still looks _awful_. I've made some minor progress with storage capacity:_

**[March 8]**

_140j_

**[March 22]**

_245j_

_245 joules looks like decent progress to me. If I keep it up, the current rate should put me well above a thousand by the exam._

* * *

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,740**

_Two months since this started and already I'm feeling a significant difference. Izuku stepped up his game more than usual, so rather than keep the steady pace from before I figured I'd double it up a bit; as a result, I've passed the two thousand mark in terms of storage capacity, and it's taking around 16 hits of the fastball to charge me up. _

**[March 8]**

_140j_

**[March 22]**

_245j_

**[May 9]**

_2,375j_

_This keeps up, I don't see any reason why I should have any problem getting into UA right along with Izuku._

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,741**

_Izuku finished cleaning up the beach today and officially received One for All, one day ahead of schedule; I made sure to witness it and be there for that important moment in his life. The entrance exams start tomorrow, so whatever progress we've made is going to have to carry us through, though I'll be sure to give him some advice going in to make things go smoother for him during the physical half. Izuku will be just fine—assuming he acts the same way he did in canon, and there's no reason to think he shouldn't, even if we get sorted into separate testing centers—and considering the numbers I punched in for my storage capacity, I think I should be fine, too. I'll get up early and run over to the cages again to charge up a little bit before the exam. Bring on the robots!_

**[March 8, 2174]**

_140j_

**[March 22]**

_245j_

**[May 9]**

_2,375j_

**[February 10, 2175] **

_17,550j_

* * *

_**Next up is the entrance exam; again, if you see any issue with the science (or have suggestions on changes to the numbers, or something like that) let me know so I can fix them. **_


	6. Debut

**A/N:** **_I currently have commissions to do the complete soundtrack for TWO(!) indie game projects, so my rate of fanfic chapter publishing will likely continue taking a hit until both are done. So don't get discouraged! I won't be abandoning this, Less Man More 'Mon, or Hunter of Hunters (I honestly just need some feedback from friends and time to sort out the story going forward for that one)._**

* * *

"You have your spare clothes?"

"Yes, Mom."

"Your books?"

"Yes, Mom."

"Pencils, paper, supplies?"

"Yes, Mom."

"Casey, bend over and let me fix that hair, it's out-of-place."

"Yes, Mom."

"Oh, Izuku, what is that gigantic mark? Hold still while I wipe it off with something wet..."

"Yes, Mom."

Izuku and I looked at each other with a shrug and grin as Mom continued to freak out over every little thing; it was still super-early—the sun had barely started to peek out over the horizon—and the entrance exams were today. We'd decided to head down to the beach quickly before rushing off to the exams, partially so Izuku could have a last-minute discussion with All-Might, partially so I could "charge up" at the batting cages; sadly, we were both currently held hostage to the age-old parental disorder known as "High School Entrance Craziness", where one's mother goes absolutely bonkers with over-mothering and obsessiveness and an insistence on taking an awkward photo before sending one off to begin their high school career. Looking back with the advantage of having all my old memories returned to me, I almost have to chuckle at how similar Inko's mothering and was to that of my birth mother on my first time around in high school.

_She really is the best mom I could have asked for in this world... I can't believe how lucky I am._

Once she rushed back and successfully removed the offending speck of dust off of Izuku's shoulder, she stood back and looked at the two of us before turning bright pink.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! My babieeeees! You look so perfect! Ooooh, where'sthephonewhere'sthephoneIgottagetapictuuuuuuuure~~! Okay boys, smile and say 'Midoriya'!"

_FLASH!_

As the spots faded from my sight I could have sworn I heard the distant sound of dogs still barking at the conclusion of mom's epic squee. Once we finally made it out the door—thankfully with plenty of time left to get to the beach before heading to school—I made sure to double-check my own notes with Izuku, who got out his own notepad.

"Okay, once we get to the beach we have about half an hour to spend."

Izuku nodded, checking his side of our planned schedule. "I talk with All-Might and get as much last-minute info about One for All as I possibly can, followed by basic stretching for the remaining time."

"I head down to the batting cages, crack up the power and rate of fire on the pitching machines as high as both will go, and charge up to at least 10% of my full capacity before moving on to my own stretches."

We nod in confirmation at each point on our schedule, dodging early-morning pedestrians and turning corners without having to look up from our notebooks even once—a skill both of us picked up and mastered long ago.

"I end with a fast walk up the short stairs by the beach monument to maximize time and distance covered while minimizing energy expenditure."

"I meet you at the top right at the end of my own fast walk with the breakfast bars."

Izuku and I both made a face at the thought of those awful things before we finished the last item in unison.

"We board the bus as it arrives at the beach entrance and pray the whole way to UA."

* * *

"Those fucking weaklings..."

Katsuki sulked to himself as he waited for orientation to begin; no matter how much he tried, he couldn't help but keep looking over his shoulder at Midoriya and his fake wannabe brother, who were sitting next to each other a few rows behind him. The fact that they had applied to UA at all burned him; _he_ was supposed to be the first and only student from Orudera Junior High to attend the prestigious hero school, and while he was confident that the two idiots had zero chance of getting in their mere presence as fellow Orudera alumni made his own less unique for it. But that wasn't the worst part; no, the worst part was that both of them looked strangely... confident. Particularly Deku, who _never_ showed any signs of being anything other than a spineless maggot when he knew Bakugo was in the room. And yet, both of them looked right in his direction without blinking, then went back to conversing among themselves as if they had seen nothing out of the ordinary; that last part made him want to rush over to them and blow their scrawny heads off, but he knew better. He'd beat them in the exam.

"_I don't care what I have to do, I don't care how long it takes, I will wait until you can't imagine being happier or more proud of yourself, and then I will make sure every ounce of joy you get from getting into that school turns to shit right in front of your eyes, then and there. And when that happens, you'll know it's because of what you said to me and him just now."_

The science nerd's warning rang through his head briefly before he shook it out. The Fake Midoriya was nothing, just like Deku. They were both nothing. And yet, he couldn't help but glare at the two even more, particularly when the "brothers" smiled at each other, a bizarre and foreign eagerness on their faces as each one drew on the confidence and strength of the other...

_Ugh, fuck that! I have so much more power than they do! I don't need them, I don't need anyone!_

As the lecture began, Bakugo became further annoyed when Deku began babbling his fanboy crap; his fury didn't abate at all, and he knew it wouldn't—not until he'd gotten in and proven that the two were nothing to him, that Katsuki Bakugo really was destined for greatness just as he'd always known.

_I'm the best. I _have_ to be. I'll be the best, or I'll be nothing at all._

* * *

I was honestly surprised at how Izuku was able to keep his nerves steady once the lecture ended; I was even more surprised when he agreed to help me do that deliberate silent diss stare right in Bakugo's direction once Izuku realized we'd all be sorted into separate testing areas and thus wouldn't have to deal with an angry Lord Explosion Murder. At the time, I figured that finishing our training a day earlier than canon (and thus having the benefit of a good nights' sleep, plus more time to mentally process what he'd just been given) was probably the big difference. Heck, before we even reached the building where the lecture was held he even managed one entire garbled "thanks" to a certain girl when he absentmindedly stumbled over a loose brick before being 'saved' by her quirk (I may have distracted him a bit as we approached that part of the path, something that I decided to make up for later by buying lunch on the way home). As we left the lecture hall, I decided to have one last-minute talk with my brother before we headed off to our respective testing centers.

"So, you ready for this?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," he said, gulping a bit. "I still don't feel that much different. I do feel _something_, but I don't know if it's my quirk or just nerves."

I nodded a bit. "I'm pretty nervous too, to be honest. By the way, about One for All... I think you should hold back on it a bit unless there's an emergency."

He looked up at me in confusion a bit before realizing what I was talking about. "That's right... my body hasn't had this quirk for very long, and All-Might did mention that I might not be able to handle 100% of it. But how will I beat the robots without it?"

"Hmm... maybe just concentrate it in a finger or something at a time until you get a handle on it? That way, if it backfires, you won't wreck your whole body, and you'll have nine more shots at using it."

"That makes sense. I'll try to keep that in mind," Izuku replied. He started to turn away, but then stopped and looked back at me. "Bro... do you really think I can do this?"

I smiled. "Izuku, I've been saying that for years, and All-Might thinks you're worthy, too. You've got what it takes to be a hero; you always have."

Izuku paused a few seconds before returning the smile. "Thanks... and good luck!"

"You too. Let's show them what we're made of!"

I gave him one last glance as he went off to his battle center. _I wish I could see you in action when your moment comes. But all the same, I know you'll succeed..._

I hurried myself over to my own designated battle center; as I looked around, I couldn't pick out any other 1-A members in the crowd milling about around the front gate. _I wonder if that's a good sign; I don't even see people from 1-B here. Maybe the competition won't be that bad._

Suddenly, the crowd parted a bit and I saw a familiar face; his hair was black instead of red, but I could tell right away who he was. _That's Kirishima. I guess I was wrong. The show and the manga never really said how well he did. Hopefully I can keep up..._

Before I could think on it further, the signal to start sounded; as soon as the gates opened, I ran as fast as I could without using my quirk, hoping to conserve energy for the robots. Turning into a side street to get out of the way of other applicants, I ran into my first target, a 2-pointer. As it turned toward me, I briefly stopped in my tracks; it was a lot more intimidating in person. Steeling myself, I rushed it and focused a decent amount of kinetic energy into my fist. To my satisfaction, I struck it square in the "jaw"... and nearly took its head right off from the blow.

"Holy crap—"

Before I could react, a 3-pointer appeared from behind, swinging a huge arm at me; it struck me in the side, only for me to absorb the force of the blow. It filled me up a lot, but I could tell I still had a lot more room to take in kinetic energy before getting full; I decided to risk a little more power to test it out, and this time I actually sent it back a few feet from the punch, which also sent some of the machinery inside out its back.

"Holy _crap._"

I couldn't help but smile a bit. I had trained my quirk a lot, but for the first time I was seeing just how much power I had; the rush and thrill of combat felt incredible, and before I knew it I was charging at robots left and right with zero fear.

"24 points... 27... 28... 30... 33..."

As I racked up score after score, I started to hear laughter; it took me a few seconds to realize it was me. _Holy. Crap. I'm fighting robots, and I'm tearing through them like tissue paper! This is fucking awesome!_

"Heh, looks like I'm not the only one having fun here!"

Looking over at the voice, I saw Kirishima smiling at me as he stood over a pile of his own. "You wanna make a contest of it? How many points do you have so far?"

"36! You?"

"Ha! 39! Get on my level—"

Before Kirishima could finish the sentence, the ground started shaking; turning our gaze upward, we caught sight of the zero-pointer towering over the buildings around us.

"HOLY CRAP!"

"Took the words right out of my mouth," Kirishima responded. "Let's get out of here—"

I thought about running, but the sheer thrill of robot destruction kept me from moving, and a crazy thought passed through my head. "Wait... let's see if we can take it down!"

He looked at me as if I had lobsters crawling out of my ears. "Dude, it's gigantic and worth zero points!"

"So what? We're doing great already, so we don't have anything to lose! Besides... we're training to be heroes! Would heroes run from something destroying a city?"

A toothy grin crossed his face. "Whoa, that's pretty manly! Alright, sounds like a plan!"

_The zero-pointer is big, but if we can take out its legs... treads... whatever, it should topple over, and gravity will handle the rest. Time to push my quirk to its limit and see what happens when I put everything I have into one attack..._

Before either of us could get far, though, a giant chunk of building fell right in front of us; it was distracting enough that I almost didn't see the gigantic fist coming at me. Trusting in my quirk, I decided to take it head-on.

That... was a mistake.

"AAAAAAAUUGH!"

As the massive fist connected, I felt myself "fill up" to near-bursting; the result was a feeling like I was about to explode, and I could definitely feel something break. The fist stopped and pulled back, but as it did I was left in incredible pain, enough that I nearly collapsed; looking myself over, I saw that bloody bruise spots were all over my body, to the point that they resembled dark purple polka-dots. I coughed a bit, and knew that I had some internal bleeding as well from the coppery taste of blood.

"Aaah... ahhh... dammit... holy... _crap..._"

_Idiot! Stupid! Moron! What the hell was I thinking?!_

Forcing myself to move, I realized that I was still overly full; something told me that I had to release the energy somehow, or I'd hurt myself even more. On the other hand, I knew that I was in bad shape, and trying to fight could just as easily wreck my body.

_But... somewhere, Izuku is breaking his body, too..._

Gritting my teeth, I ignored Kirishima's concerned shouts, and put absolutely every ounce of energy I could into one big punch; as I did, I decided to follow my brother's example and shouted at the top of my lungs.

"SMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSHHHHHH!"

The instant I connected, the shockwave from the punch sent literal ripples through the bottom half of the zero-pointer, causing the treads to break, the base to shatter, and the robot let out a deafening metallic groan as it toppled backwards. As it did, I tried to smile... only to find myself practically frozen.

_What... what's happening? I can't move a muscle... I can't close my eyes, or even breathe..._

It didn't take me long to realize what had happened.

_I used up all the kinetic energy I stored up. Without anything left, I'm stuck. I can't move without it. Not unless... not unless someone hits me or moves me somehow._

But I couldn't move. I couldn't even speak, or look in a different direction. All I could do was hope for someone to come and help me.

"Hey, what's wrong? You're pretty messed up... Hey, say something! Come on, dude, snap out of it!"

_Kirishima... dammit, hit me or move me! Figure it out, or I'll suffocate!_

Thankfully, Kirishima decided to slap me a bit. It wasn't much, but it was enough for me to twitch a bit.

"Do... that... again..."

"Huh?! What the hell do you mean—"

"Hit... me... can't... move... without..." Every word was a struggle, and what little breathing I could do wasn't enough. I still couldn't do much more than stand there and twitch.

Finally getting the picture, he slapped me a little harder, and this time it was enough to unfreeze me. I gasped for air, and collapsed on the ground just as the test ended. The last thing I saw before blacking out was Kirishima yelling for medical aid.

* * *

_**Well, there's the entrance exam done with. Read and review!**_


	7. More Preparatory Stress

**A/N:****_With regards to the journal entries later in this chapter, I'd like to give a shout-out to World Weaver for their inadvertently suggesting something scarily close to what I had planned out almost from the start! Also, get out of my head before I have to invest in a Magneto helmet._**

* * *

As I began to come back to the waking world, I felt a strange sort of exhaustion; at once, I could tell I was in bed and almost certainly at the nurse's office. This was confirmed by the wrinkled old face of Recovery Girl smiling over me.

"Ah, it seems you didn't have long to wait at all!"

Before I could ask her what she meant by that, I heard a very familiar shout from nearby—just a few feet to my right, on the other side of Recovery Girl.

"BROTHER!" Izuku was there, lying in a similar bed and smiling broadly at me; he had a few bandages here and there, but was otherwise in good shape.

"Indeed," Recovery Girl said, a peculiar mix of worry, sarcasm, and anger coloring her voice, "if it weren't for the obvious lack of blood relations, I would have had to wonder whether or not self-destructive recklessness was a genetic trait that all Midoriyas share! Honestly, if I had my way we'd have a different sort of practical exam, but no one listens to the school nurse..."

"We've been out for a couple of hours, but apparently everything's fine," Izuku said as he walked over to my side; "We can go home as soon as Recovery Girl says we're finished healing up."

I decided to pry even though I knew full well why he was here. "So what happened with your exam? You look okay to me..."

"It's Recovery Girl's quirk! She can make you heal from nearly anything, but it makes you really exhausted—"

"Izuku, that's not what I meant."

"OH! You mean, how well did I do?..." He trailed off, a slight bit of shame in his voice. "Well, I don't know if I'm going to pass. I took your advice and focused power into my fingers, so I was able to take down a few robots here and there, but... well, the girl who was so nice to us earlier was in trouble, the zero-pointer came along, and I just... cut loose. I destroyed the zero-pointer, but the backlash of my quirk wrecked my arm and both my legs, and before I could do anything else the exam was over."

I stared at him in surprise. _Wait, he managed to score some villain points and still have enough left in the tank for saving Uraraka? Not to mention, he's not as completely despondent, and not as entirely certain he failed the exam completely..._

"Heh," I chuckled, "that's my brother. You always had more caution than me. I was an idiot by comparison..."

Recovery Girl snorted. "You're _both_ idiots if you ask me. In any case, you can finish telling each other about your respective lack of common sense outside; you're both free to go, and if you both somehow manage to get accepted I don't want to have to see either of you in my office in that shape again, you hear me?"

We gathered our things and started making our way to the bus stop. It was still roughly mid-day, so I figured there was still time to get a quick lunch on the way home; as we finished discussing the specific location, Izuku remembered my words in Recovery Girl's office.

"About your exam... what did you mean when you said you were... uh, I mean, about my having more caution?"

"You don't have to avoid using my own words there, bro. I _was_ an idiot..."

I explained everything that had happened in my own exam, about how I had gotten caught up in the rush and made a boneheaded mistake that nearly got me killed as a result.

"That's the whole story, really. Next I know I'm in the nurse's office."

"...Sotherehastobesomereasonforthezeropointerbeyondjustanobstacletoovercome, butwhatisitandhowdoesitapplytoherotrainingandwhatdoesitmeanforourchancesofpassing..."

I looked over to see my brother in his patented 'mutter mode'. "Izuku, what's going through your head this time?"

"HUH?! Oh, I mean... your story just made me think about that zero-pointer and the reason for it to be there. Yeah, the way you described it definitely made it seem like an obstacle to avoid, and I can see the need to press home the idea that you can't beat everything... but that can't be the only reason it exists, can it?"

I was mildly surprised by this change from canon and decided to see how far he could take this discovery. "You're right. Maybe there's some other aspect to the physical exam beyond just combat points?"

"That's what I was starting to figure out just now," he replied. "There were judges watching the exam, but those robots would have had sensors telling when they were destroyed, how they were destroyed, and who did it, so why use human judges anyway unless there was some other criteria they needed to look for that a robot wouldn't be able to see? And that got me thinking of the villain that attacked me the day we met All-Might. Heroes have to go in against villains who outclass them every now and then—like the pros struggling to save Kacchan even though they knew they couldn't hurt the bad guy—so why have an obstacle to teach potential students to run away from danger? I think the zero-pointer may have been a test of character; you don't get anything for beating it, but the act of trying anyway—depending on the reason—might count for a lot."

By the time he was done, the mild surprise I felt had given way to shock and genuine pride. _Seriously, how many more times are you going to completely amaze me today, Izuku?_ As he finished, though, a strange sense of shame came over me. "In that case, I don't think I'll be getting nearly as many points as you for beating that giant robot."

"Why not?"

"You said 'depending on the reason'; your reason was to save someone in need, regardless of the fact that you still needed more villain points. _That_ was selfless and heroic. Me? I had plenty of points, I just got an ego and wanted to test my limits; as a result, I nearly got flattened. That's not selfless _or_ heroic, that's vain and_ stupid."_

I spat out that last word, knowing it was absolutely the truth. We walked in silence for a little while before the burning shame passed and I decided to try and bring some cheer back. "In any case, Izuku, I don't think either of us has to worry about getting in; it'll be a week before we get the results, and then until April before class starts. That's enough time to really start thinking about our costumes, get some training in, and even some extra research!"

That got a smile out of my brother. "Right! I have some ideas on the first one, too..."

I somehow managed to avoid laughing at the mere thought of that ridiculous mask.

* * *

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,742**

_One of the few upsides to what happened in my practical is that I now know two key downsides of my power:_

(1.) "_Overflow" is definitely dangerous; based on what I recall of the bruising, my hypothesis is that it makes the excess energy start releasing in microscopic explosions throughout my body—not big enough to crack bones, but enough to cause bleeding and considerable pain. This could easily just be the best-case scenario, however, and greater "overflow" could result in far worse._

(2.) _I can put everything I've stored up into one last-ditch mega punch, but in the process I use up all my kinetic energy, without which I can't move or breathe unless someone gives me kinetic energy by moving me or hitting me. Sir Isaac Newton giveth, Sir Isaac Newton taketh away._

_I don't see any immediate way to avoid the former aside from not being such a moron in the future, but the second also plays into an issue I've thought about for a while: what if I don't have time to charge up in the morning? How do I keep from running too low in the middle of a fight? Not every opponent is going to have a physical attack, and those with the option and the brains would probably figure out that I'd need to get physically hit to use my power. What I need is something built-in to my hero costume that can charge me up on the fly as well as ensure I don't get paralyzed like in the exam._

_With that in mind, I've come up with what I refer to as a "vibration rig", or "vibro-rig" for short. At the moment, it's really just a sketch in this journal rather than anything physical: a small motor from a massage device or something similar that I could put on my costume. Upon activation, it would vibrate against me, giving me kinetic energy to absorb for a decent boost, or activate to keep me from being paralyzed. There are a couple of issues right off the bat to this—for one, how to keep it vibrating when my power would immediately stop it upon contact with me—but I'm confident that I have plenty of time to test and experiment._

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,743**

_The first test of the prototype rig didn't go as planned; I bought a burner phone with a vibrate function at a corner store, pried it open, and took out the motor for my rig. At this point, the rig is just an external battery, a button, and the motor sewn into a glove; when I press the button, the motor activates, and I feel a tiny bit of energy... but nothing big enough to register in terms of the accelerometer in the punching bag. The motor also stops working for a few minutes; as I suspected, my power absorbs the kinetic energy directly from the motor, which makes the motor stop. I need something in between the motor and me, some way to transfer the energy indirectly..._

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,744**

_Not quite there yet, but I think I'm on to something with version 0.2. I decided to create a "suspension" system for the motor, where the motor rests on a small metal spring from a wind-up toy on the side facing my body; when I press the button, the motor activates, the kinetic energy is transferred to the spring, and then my quirk absorbs it. The motor kept going, but from what I could tell on examining the rig afterwards I could probably do with a better-quality spring, and the motor itself simply doesn't give enough juice to be worth it. I'll need something a little more powerful._

_Also, we got the acceptance letter today; mom was freaking out, but to be honest so were Izuku and I. Can't wait to start the real training and meet everyone!_

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,745**

_I think the vibration rig is close to a full version. 0.3 had a few changes:_

_* Bigger motor from a phone meant for people with giant-related quirks_

_* Better-quality springs, purchased from a hardware store_

_* Larger battery_

_* Accelerometer-based switch that activates the rig automatically when I'm still for a certain amount of time_

_This time, I was able to get a small power-up from the motor, just enough to register on the punching bag. From repeated testing, I estimate that it would still take a few minutes of vibration to get any difference that would be noticeable in a fight, but that can be improved in later versions, and the emergency function has been thoroughly tested and should save me if I need it. For now, this will do, but there's still the problem that it would make an enticing target for a smart opponent; I'll need to protect it somehow, while also working it into my hero costume._

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,750**

_Well, I'm finally at what I feel is the prime candidate for vibro-rig 1.0; I still haven't really changed anything with the motor itself from the 0.3 version, but I definitely improved its durability over the last couple of versions since then:_

_* Rig housing now iron instead of hardened plastic_

_* Shock-absorption springs in housing facing outwards to further reduce potential damage_

_* Battery protected further still_

_* Button replaced with pneumatic pressure sensor that runs into my glove (with matching sensor on the other hand) so that rig activates when I punch my fists together_

_That last one should help me disguise the whole rig as just a fancy armbrace once my costume is ready. Hopefully, this thing should last me a while before I need a new one. In any case, our first day of school is right around the corner, and as excited as I am I'm also super-nervous; I can't imagine Eraserhead being impressed with me or Izuku, particularly after we both wrecked ourselves the way we did. That said, I don't think there'll be nearly as much of an issue with the assessment test as in canon, given how much we've been training since then and such; even All-Might is impressed at how quickly Izuku's progressing. Look out, UA: Here come the Super Midoriya Brothers!_

* * *

Izuku couldn't help but get lost in thought a bit on the bus ride to UA; even after everything that had happened since meeting All-Might, everything still seemed so unreal, like a dream that would shatter into reality at the slightest touch. The only thing keeping him from freaking out, as usual, was his brother's confident demeanor.

_But in reality, Casey is just as nervous as I am, _thought Izuku, _and he hides it the same way All-Might and other heroes do. By pretending to be fearless..._

If you had asked Izuku even a year ago if he were capable of such a facade, of displaying courage in the face of fear, he would have immediately admitted to the contrary. Now, though, his confidence was greater than it had ever been, and the mere realization that his brother was holding up a brave front as well motivated him to do the same—if only to share the burden and return the favor. Izuku would carry Casey, who would carry him.

_What would I be like if I didn't have a brother? _He asked himself; _I'd probably still let Kacchan walk all over me, even with One for All. I'd probably still look at Kacchan as a model of confidence instead of... what he really is._

He still felt nervous around the blonde, to be perfectly honest, but the all-pervasive fear had been all but banished as a result of his newfound quirk, with Casey's support providing an additional boost. That said, there was still one thing his brother seemed not to be able to do, one thing that nagged at him whenever the three of them—Izuku, Casey, and Bakugo—were together:

Casey _hated_ Bakugo. Not without reason, but...

_Kacchan doesn't deserve hate. He definitely doesn't deserve respect, but hate? No. There's more than enough of that going around in his head already without other people adding to it._

Izuku had thought multiple times about speaking to Casey over what he'd seen in Bakugo hidden underneath all that rage and bluster, but bottled it up every time his brother made a smart response or tried to annoy the bully to take the heat off of him. Casey was doing it to protect Izuku; if he tried to intervene, wouldn't that be ungrateful? Would his brother even understand, or would he see Izuku as a doormat defending his own abuser?

_I'm grateful for the help, bro. I really am. But you're not entirely right about Kacchan. You're not wrong, but not completely right. God, how did I not see through him before? How was I that scared of him for so long?_

In all likelihood, Izuku knew, they'd end up in a class with Bakugo. Which meant that eventually they'd have to deal with this, one way or another. How was _he_ supposed to be the big brother to _Casey_ when it had been the other way around for as long as they'd known each other?

At last, the bus reached its destination, and soon after they stood in front of the rather intimidatingly-large door to their classroom.

_Time to meet our classmates..._

* * *

_**Next up is the quirk assessment test and the rest of Class 1-A. In case I haven't made it clear enough, Bakugo is going to have a lot more character expansion and development than he did in canon; one of the only frustrations I have with MHA (aside from "worthless-pervert-who-shall-remain-nameless") is that Bakugo gets off way too easy and yet somehow gets a consequence-free redemption, in addition to a lack of realistic explanation as to why he's such an asshole. Hopefully I can pull it off well. As usual, if you have anything to say at all, please leave a comment or review, and I'll see you next chapter!**_


	8. Pride and Prejudice

**A/N:****_Welp, one of my full soundtrack commissions fell through (the customer decided I didn't quite fit what he was looking for), so my time is freed up just a bit. Still sort of disappointed, but that's the nature of commissioned work._**

* * *

_Damn nerds. How the fuck did they get in?_

Bakugo sulked as he walked into the school; no matter what he did, he couldn't figure out how the Midoriya brothers passed the exams.

_One's a quirkless wannabe, the other's a science nerd and a foreigner. There's no way they got in fair. They must have cheated!_

He grew more and more irritable with every second; finally, he decided to focus on the one thing that he could take genuine comfort in: his exam score. The hologram of All-Might made it clear: Bakugo had received more villain points than any other student since All-Might himself. As he thought, he was the best, the top of the class, the cream of the crop, and there was nothing that could take that away from him—not even the thought of the worthless fake brothers getting in—and he knew that soon enough they'd get found out for cheating and kicked out. He chuckled at all the losers pushing and shoving to gawk at the board listing the exam scores; they'd all look and know he'd beaten them all.

As he wandered the halls in search of the 1-A classroom—_the perfect class for me. It's right there in the name—_he noticed various students happily chatting with their friends; upon seeing him and his glare, though, the students in question would go silent and edge toward the walls.

He scowled even deeper at that; something about it bothered him, but he didn't know what it was or why. _It doesn't matter. I'm better than them..._

Upon arriving at the door to the classroom, he shoved it open and walked to the first desk he laid eyes on, ignoring the extras in his class attempting to befriend him. Unfortunately, the damn glasses jerk had to speak up, yelling something about his feet on the desk.

Bakugo responded to the irritation in his usual manner. "You're kidding me, right? Your old school put a stick up your ass, or were you born with it?"

The glasses jerk introduced himself, but Bakugo didn't bother to pay attention to the name. The mention of Somei private academy caught his ear, however. He recalled a moment from his past; the Fake Midoriya had been rather excited about the possibility of trying for that school instead of Aldera Junior High, but Deku insisted on the latter—which meant the Fake stayed as well. Something about the memory irritated Bakugo, but once again the reason slipped his mind. So once again, he responded to the new nerd with a rebellious attitude.

"Somei, huh? So you must think you're better than me! I'm gonna enjoy tearing_ you_ a new one!"

Suddenly, who should enter the room but Deku and his fake brother, both of whom began calmly introducing themselves to the class. It was then that Bakugo's entire world was shattered and shaken.

"Wait, 'Midoriya?' Hey, wasn't that the name of the one who got the highest score on the entrance exam?"

_No. It was me._

Bakugo froze, looking at the fake brothers.

_It was me. _I_ got the highest score. It had to be me._

The fake shrugged. "What can I say? My brother acted like a real hero, that's why he got all those rescue points." The fake then looked at Bakugo... and _smiled._

_Rescue points?! What the hell are those?! That's not possible! It was supposed to be ME!_

Try as he might, Bakugo couldn't think up any response; it was as if his entire body shut down in shock, his mind repeating itself like a broken record.

_It was supposed to be me..._ _I _had_ to be the best..._

* * *

Seeing the rest of Class 1-A and knowing I was a part of it was surreal to say the least. As soon as we were noticed, Iida strode forward in his signature near-robotic manner.

"Hello! My name is Tenya Iida."

A welcome departure from canon occurred as Izuku kept his cool and returned a calm and friendly introduction. "Nice to meet you! I'm Izuku Midoriya, and this is my brother Casey!"

Iida and a few others looked in confusion at that; Kaminari spoke up first. "Brother? Is he adopted?"

_No, I just had facial reconstruction to look completely different from him. Just as lovably dense as in canon. Never change, Kaminari. _Jiro smacked the electric boy on the back of the head. "Don't be rude. I'm Kyoka Jiro, by the way."

Kaminari started to reply before realizing something else. "Wait, 'Midoriya?' Hey, wasn't that the name of the one who got the highest score on the entrance exam?"

_Again, never change, Kaminari. You just made this the perfect day._

The instant I had seen Izuku's score in the acceptance letter, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to get back at Bakugo for making my brother's life hell. 60 rescue points, just as in canon... but with my suggestion that he use the trick with his fingers, he managed to rack up 18 villain points, leading to a total of 78—one more than Bakugo's 77 in canon. Not only that, but it would only drive home just how much more of a hero Izuku was.

"What can I say? My brother acted like a real hero, that's why he got all those rescue points."

Izuku frowned at me a bit there; I wasn't sure why.

"Yes," Iida said with a nod. "I was meaning to speak with you concerning that very matter, Midoriya Izuku. You managed to realize something about the exam that I, and many others, did not: that there was something more to the exam than simply destroying villains! I must admit, you are superior to me as a student in every way, and your score only serves to highlight your brilliance!"

And yes, Iida did that weird thing with his arms the entire time he spoke. More importantly, Bakugo looked like he was about to have a stroke.

"Heheh... it wasn't anything special, really. And you don't have to use my full name, just call me Izuku—"

"Hey! I recognize that messed-up hair!"

Ochaco entered the room, and this time canon didn't change, because my brother turned redder than a tomato. As he babbled out a response, I took one last look at Bakugo.

_The day's not done yet, jerk. By the end of it, you'll wish you never applied._

Aizawa showed up not long after that, going through his canon spiel before leading us to the sports field for the Quirk assessment test; As per canon, Bakugo got a little over 700 meters out of the softball pitch, but didn't look near as smug as he did in canon. The instant Aizawa mentioned that the lowest score would have to leave, though, Izuku began to panic.

"Oh man... I'm toast..."

"Hey, don't worry, bro," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. "We've gone through a lot of training since the exam and you're already starting to get a better handle on your quirk."

I took another glance at Bakugo, who looked even more shook up; this time he had to speak up. "Quirk?! That's not possible! He didn't have one before!"

Everyone turned to the blonde bully in confusion. "What? That makes no sense," Iida said; "I saw what he did to the zero-pointer in the exam. He demolished it with a single punch! Certainly, it was at the cost of his arm and legs, but—"

"He's right," I interrupted, putting my arm around my brother's shoulder. "Turns out, Izuku here is a bit of a medical marvel; his quirk didn't show up until the end of Junior High last year. He's a real late bloomer! It's super-rare apparently, but there's some precedent."

I smiled at Bakugo again. _That's right, jerk. You spent your whole life thinking your quirk alone made you perfect, and then my brother ends up outscoring you with a quirk he's had for about a year._

Izuku frowned at me a bit. "Bro, you don't have to—"

Before he could finish the sentence, Aizawa interrupted. "If I could continue the explanation... we'll start off with the 50-meter dash. Line up when I call your names."

When Izuku and I were called up, I briefly focused on my own quirk; here was the opportunity to show off a trick I'd learned while experimenting with it. I took a few deep breaths, then shoved a bit of kinetic energy into pushing off the ground with my feet. With the next step, I absorbed the energy of my foot hitting the ground; the step after that, I pushed off with my quirk again. The result was that I got faster with every other step, and absorbing just enough via the other steps to keep it going. As a result, I got just under Iida in terms of the time. Izuku did a lot better in canon thanks to our increased training, and he actually beat Ochaco with his time.

At last, the moment of truth arrived: the softball throw. I thought for sure Aizawa would take Izuku's finger trick into account here and give him a chance to show off without trying to stop him, but unfortunately Eraserhead was just as unimpressed as in canon.

"The instructors in the exam were not rational," he said as he used his quirk. "At least your brother could use his quirk without hurting himself so long as he doesn't act like a moron the way he did in the exam. You, on the other hand... your quirk is worthless if it injures you whenever you use it. Someone like you should never have been allowed to attend."

I froze at that last part; unlike Momo, I knew Aizawa wasn't bluffing when he threatened to expel the person who came in last. It took an impressive development in canon to convince him not to do it, but here Izuku had already figured out the finger trick and so couldn't take Aizawa by surprise with it... which meant I would likely have to think of something to avoid my brother going home. Thinking quickly, I stepped forward.

"Mr. Aizawa, please let him try."

He looked at me with a tired expression. "What, and let him break a finger or three? You're wasting your breath—"

"HE'LL GET BETTER!" I flinched a bit once I realized I had just shouted and interrupted our teacher. Taking a breath to calm myself, I continued. "Like I said earlier, my brother hasn't had his quirk for very long, and his body isn't used to it. But we've both been training, and trust me when I say he's getting better every day. So please, just give him a chance, and I swear he'll get a handle on his quirk and surpass every expectation you have. He's got the makings of a real hero—not a fame-seeker, not a glory-hound, a real hero, a symbol of peace that inspires others. If you expel him now... you'll never get to see it. Give him a chance, and I promise you: one day, he'll amaze you... the way he's always amazed me."

A silence hung in the air; Aizawa was stone-faced, and for a moment I wondered if I had failed, even when he let Izuku do the throw. As in canon, Izuku managed to get one decimal point higher than Bakugo, who had to be restrained by our teacher; in the end, he managed to stay in. When Aizawa revealed that no one was going home, I knew exactly what I was going to do and say:

_"'Pray you'll get a quirk in your next life, and take a swan dive off the roof of the building.' '__Gonna say something, science nerd? Go kill yourself along with your fake brother.'"_

_Off of everyone's reactions, I'd continue. "That's what you told us back in Junior high when we said we wanted to apply for this school. You told me and Izuku to kill ourselves, and you did it purely for the sake of being cruel."_

The reaction would be immediate: the entire class would be shocked and horrified. They'd see him as a villain, unworthy of the school. Every good feeling Bakugo had about getting in would be taken away in an instant, he'd be humiliated and condemned by everyone around him, and he'd know exactly why. I moved to speak... only to feel Izuku's hand on my shoulder as he whispered in my ear.

"Brother, don't."

I stomped forward and tried to ignore him, and this time I heard something that genuinely shocked me: Izuku _snapped_ at me.

"CASEY, STOP!"

Looking back at him, I saw a stern look on his face—not just a look of worry, but also a look of _disappointment._ It stopped me in my tracks; I had never, in all the time I had known him, seen that look on his face. Not with me. Something similar to shame filled me, and I didn't speak for the rest of the class. It wasn't until we were walking home that we started speaking again.

"Izuku... why did you stop me?"

"Because he doesn't deserve it."

I looked at him in shock. "Doesn't deserve it?! He's done nothing but give you hell since he's known you! He even told you to _kill_ yourself that day! He's closer to being a villain than he'll ever be to being a hero! Why are you defending him? How _can_ you defend him? Don't tell me you admire him—"

"I don't admire him, I PITY him!"

He had snapped at me again. I shut my mouth and let him speak, still in shock.

"You bait and insult him so much, and I know you mean well. But... you haven' t seen what's behind his eyes. He hates us, but the _reason_ he hates us is that deep down... he hates_ himself._ As much as he brags and tries to prove his worth, it's all to hide that he knows exactly how far he is from the ideal hero; I've been kind to him even when he wasn't kind to me, and every time I do that it ends up reminding him of what he lacks. Then he looks at us, at our bond as brothers, at how we're able to make friends, and it all becomes so much worse because he know that his temper means the only people who will bother hanging out with him do it out of fear of him—and that's only if they're not objectively awful people. And when that happens, he sees exactly how much closer his is to being _them_ than he is to being a hero."

Every word Izuku said shook me. _Did you really see all of this in him? How?_

Izuku continued, looking at me with genuine worry and regret. "Don't you see? He doesn't deserve hate... he feels too much of that himself. He genuinely wants to be a hero, and in time he'll learn from his mistakes. But if you keep on hating him, if you bully him back... he really _will_ become a villain. I don't want that. Not for him, not for anyone."

As soon as he finished talking, I felt a crushing sense of guilt come over me. "Dammit..." _I stopped you from being in awe of him... so instead, you want to save him. The one person who has done nothing but hurt you your whole life, and you still want to save him..._

For once in our lives, Izuku's eyes were tear-free, and I was the one starting to break down. I didn't know why. "You really are a hero, Izuku. You really are..."

* * *

_**This is my idea of what Bakugo's issues are, and I'm fully aware that it doesn't 100% fit the bill in canon. That being said, I'm trying to expand his character beyond what Horikoshi wrote him as, because it never made sense to me for the asshole to redeem himself so quickly with such limited reasons for being an asshole as were revealed in canon.**_


	9. Humble Pie

**A/N:**_**Huge thanks to **__**readerdreamer5625**__**on Spacebattles for his advice on this chapter!**_

* * *

_Fucking fake brothers..._

Bakugo sulked angrily as he waited for class to begin; the events of the previous day were a humiliation he'd never experienced before. But that wasn't the problem.

The problem was that clearly, it was intended to be far more humiliating than that.

_He was gonna tell everyone what I said... and Deku stopped him._

His pride was definitely hurting; he didn't need help from anyone, let alone a formerly-quirkless loser like Deku. He didn't need saving. Everyone always said he was going to be a great hero one day, and he knew he had to be the best because... because everyone said so? No, that couldn't be it, he didn't care what people thought of him. He repeated it like a mantra in his head, only to run into a traitorous part of his mind he had been unable to quash since the day before.

_I don't care what people think of me. _

Then why did the thought of not being the best when everyone said he would be burn him so much?

_I don't care what people think of me._

Then why was he afraid of what the Fake Midoriya was definitely about to tell the others before Deku stopped him?

The internal exchange continued, threatening to drive him insane. He finally managed to escape it by turning his thoughts toward another feeling: the fact that Deku, of all people, had _saved him_. Again. It didn't help that the weakling had beaten his score—his quirk, that he had possessed all his life and was experienced in its use—with a quirk that had only popped up less than a year ago, one that the worthless bastard had yet to control.

_That bastard..._

Deku had saved him. No, more than that, Deku _pitied_ him.

_That bastard! I don't need pity! Not from a weakling like him! I don't! Not from him..._

* * *

"Awww... I wish I kept the mask..."

"It's not that big a deal, bro. You look cool enough without it!"

After All-Might's little introductory speech and announcement of the battle training, we went immediately to the dressing room with our costumes; with regards to Izuku's costume, I had not long ago talked him into ditching the utterly ridiculous and completely awkward-looking "bunny ears" mask, though he did keep the faceguard.

He looked at me with an uncertain expression. "You really think so?"

"Absolutely," I responded with a smile; "Besides, why would you _want_ to hide your face? The world ought to see _you_ and know that _you_, Izuku Midoriya, are a hero! No mask, no disguise, just your face; 'never fear, Izuku Midoriya is here!'"

My brother paused, looking at his hand for a bit. "'I am here...'" He clenched his fist and looked at me with a smile.

With that, we finished dressing and made our way to the training grounds, ready to make our in-costume debut.

Aside from the lack of a mask, Izuku's costume was identical to canon. As for mine, my costume was actually very similar to his; same red belt, same black kneepads, but with a different white-striped pattern on the green outfit. The gloves were a bit longer as well, and featured two vibro-rigs built into each of them disguised as a large decorative metal stud on the back of the fist. The faceguard was slightly different as well; instead of a "fake smile", there were a series of three thin horizontal white lines, but the shape was mostly the same. The intended message was clear: separately, we were formidable heroes, but together, we were the Midoriya Brothers.

Unfortunately, fate determined that we were not to be paired together for the simulation; Izuku received the same match-up as in canon, having been paired with Uraraka against Iida and Bakugo. My inclusion in Class 1-A did have an effect on other pairings, though; for instance, rather than being paired with Sero on the villain team, Kirishima ended up paired with me on the hero side of things, with Momo and Aoyama as our opponents. I was pleasantly surprised with Kirishima as my partner, considering how well we hit it off during the practical exam—not to mention his quirk could work well with mine if he hit me hard enough. As for our opponents, I wasn't exactly worried, but I wasn't completely cocky about it, either; I couldn't think of anything Momo could make up that would work against my quirk, but at the same time I knew how smart she was and that she could probably think of _something_. Aoyama was another unknown factor; I hadn't been on the receiving end of an energy-based attack before and wasn't sure whether or not my quirk would be able to get anything out if it, even though his navel laser clearly had a concussive effect on its targets. At the same time, though, I knew he was overconfident and obsessed with flashiness, which were both highly exploitable qualities.

As per canon, Izuku's match came first; I had a hard time watching it now that I saw Izuku as a brother and not just a fictional character, but he definitely did better than in canon. For some reason, Bakugo seemed _slightly _less bonkers, though he still went way overboard in his offense, and while Izuku didn't need to blow his arm to win this time he was still pretty messed up by the end of it. All in all, it went a little smoother than in canon, but it was still an incredibly uphill battle for him and Uraraka.

As Izuku got bandaged up by the medical robots and Bakugo got a talking-to from All Might, I breathed a sigh of genuine relief back in the viewing area.

"Dude, that fight was insane," Kaminari said with amazement. "Midori packs a real punch!"

I looked over at the electric boy. "'Midori?'"

He shrugged in response. "Well, your last name is Midoriya too, so I figured chopping off the last bit would make it easier to tell the difference. Besides, his hair's green, so it fits..."

"That's actually pretty clever," I responded, "But he's already decided on 'Deku' as a hero name."

Kaminari nodded in understanding. "Interesting. You figured out your name yet?"

I shook my head. "Not yet. Just call me Casey-kun for now."

There was a brief period of silence before a sudden shout broke it.

"KEIKKUN AND IZUKKUN!"

All eyes turned to the ever-excitable Ashido, who had a big grin on her face as she announced the nicknames. "See, 'kei' is the first half of your name, and—"

"So noisy..." Tokoyami interrupted with his usual terse demeanor.

Jiro rolled her eyes at Ashido, her hands behind her head. "Yeah, I think we get it," she said before turning to me. "What do you think about it, though?"

I considered the nicknames that the class Genki Girl had forced on my brother and me. "Hmm... they're kinda weird, but also kinda catchy. I guess they could be useful enough, until I figure out a hero name for myself."

Before the discussion could continue, the buzzer announcing the next match sounded; this time, it was Ashido and Sero as the villain team against Sato and Koda; the former team managed to eke out a decent-enough victory. After that, canon struck again as Shoji and Todoroki were paired against Ojiro and Hagakure, with the same chilling conclusion. Once that was over and everything cleaned up, it was finally our turn; as we made our way to the test building, Kirishima decided to engage in a little small talk.

"So, dude, what do you know about Bakugo? Why was he so worked up over your brother back there?"

I started to say 'because he's a jerk and a bully', but Izuku's words yesterday gave me pause.

"...I guess it's because his pride's a little wounded. He always thought pretty highly of himself, then my brother and I come along and one-up him after years of him thinking we were weaker."

He stopped to think for a moment before looking at me and giving his trademark toothy grin. "So what you're saying is, he could use a friend, right?"

_No, that has absolutely nothing to do with what I just said,_ I thought to myself. Why Kirishima was so determined to make friends with Lord Explosion Murder was beyond me, but I figured it was none of my business. Besides, I was trying not to think about the asshole too much; Izuku's little speech about him still had me a bit shaken over the whole thing, and when you add the nail-biting experience of watching their match it added up to a lot of stress that I didn't need on my mind as we planned our assault.

Our plan was straightforward; go in, sneak around as best we could until we made our way to the bomb room, then charge the device before either Momo or Aoyama could stop us. It wasn't a terribly complicated plan, but I figured between his hardening and my ability to absorb kinetic energy we were durable enough to take on any countermeasures or ambushes well enough.

We peered carefully through a ground-floor window; the coast looked clear enough, and it was fairly close to a stairwell, so we decided that would make a good entry point. I stepped through first, giving a careful look around before turning to see Kirishima climbing through... only to see that I had barely missed a tripwire just under the window.

"Kirishima, wait!"

"Huh? What for—"

Oblivious to the danger, he stepped on the tripwire, breaking it... and triggering a small explosion that caused the ceiling near the stairwell to collapse, blocking it off.

Kirishima sulked slightly, with a twinge of embarrassment in his voice. "Well, that stairwell is definitely out of the question..."

"It's fine, there's bound to be another one somewhere around here. Though maybe we should take it a little more slowly from now on; if they blocked this one out, there will definitely be more traps waiting for us on the other stairwells, too."

It took us about five minutes to locate another stairwell, and thankfully this one didn't have explosives blocking it off. It did, however, have a rather nasty surprise in the form of Home Alone-style swinging bucket traps—neither of which did much to us, since Kirishima could harden himself and I just absorbed the impact of them—but they did slow us down a bit. The stairwell stopped a few floors down from the bomb room, though, and it took roughly five more minutes to find the next one; by the time we finally reached the door to the bomb room, we had about three minutes remaining, so there was no room for caution.

"Okay, I'll use my quirk to knock the door off its hinges, then we rush the bomb as fast as we can," I whispered.

Kirishima nodded with a grin before whispering back. "A dynamic entry, huh? Sounds pretty manly. Okay, I'll follow your lead; make your move whenever you're ready!"

Focusing a bit of my power into my fist—just enough to send the door flying a few feet, but hopefully not enough to potentially send it flying into the bomb—I punched the door; it buckled a bit, but obviously there was something behind it that braced it slightly, so I gave it another punch. This time, it flew off as intended, and as it landed with a thud we charged through it, the bomb just ahead of us...

_SPLORTCH!_

Suddenly, we stopped in our tracks as we both stepped in a puddle of something; looking down, we saw what had trapped us: a large puddle of a glue-like substance.

"AOYAMA, NOW!"

We had just enough time to look to the side to see Momo and Mr. Sparkles smirking at us as the latter fired his navel laser; the impact jarred us loose from the glue, but to my dismay I didn't feel any kinetic charge from it as Kirishima and I were sent flying... right into a steel net that quickly entangled us. Momo had figured out the perfect answer to our quirks; tangled up as we were, neither of us could actually punch or tear our way through the net, and there seemed to be a little glue on the net as well, which only made matters worse. Suffice to say, we were unable to get out of the net before time ran out.

"Don't worry," Momo said with a sly grin. "The glue dissolves quickly, so it shouldn't be too difficult to untangle you without ripping out some hairs."

As I grumbled at the loss, I did my best to look on the bright side. _Well, at least I know a couple more weaknesses to my quirk..._

* * *

_**Okay! With that out of the way, I'd like to ask you guys to participate a little bit with some feedback: Should I ship the SI with anyone? If so, who should the SI get shipped with (keep in mind that I'm straight as an arrow—not that there's anything wrong with LGBTQ+, that's just not me)? Make sure to leave a comment, and I'll pick whatever seems to make the most sense. See you next chapter!**_


	10. Calm Before the Storm

**A/N:****_With the USJ incident coming up, I figured it would be a good idea to insert some slice-of-life in between and establish some character relationships beforehand, along with some more journal entries. I don't usually like adding shipping subplots, but I feel like I need the experience with writing believable subplots of that type anyway. As such, I added some interactions between my favorite three 1-A girls, so feel free to continue suggesting ships as time goes on—just make sure to try and give decent reasons why!_**

* * *

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,751**

_Losing to Momo and Aoyama during the battle training burned a little, but on the bright side of things I learned another key limitation of my quirk—namely, the fact that it doesn't seem to react to energy-based attacks, even ones that have concussive force. This is a pretty big weakness, and as such I should do my best to figure out a way to cover it. I've also decided to test for other possible weaknesses or exceptions to my quirk going forward; thankfully, it's the weekend, so I have a couple of days before the USJ incident is scheduled to occur. Still not as much time as I'd like, and probably not enough time to develop any real protection against the energy weakness, but the more knowledge the better._

_Knowing mom would probably have a bit of a freakout if she realized I was experimenting with ways to hurt myself, I decided to hold the experiments on the beach as Izuku worked out with All-Might..._

* * *

"Okay, test one: fire and/or heat. Fire and heat involve some level of kinetic energy reactions, so if any exception to the energy weakness exists it would likely be here."

Setting my phone on the tripod so it could continue recording me, I turned on the small portable stove and waited for it to get good and hot.

"First, control measurement," I said, punching the portable bag I had made with the measuring equipment inside five times. "Control is... over five punches, average 150j. Starting test, heat without flame."

I then turned to the portable stove and held my hand over it, slowly bringing it closer until I felt enough heat that I didn't want to go further. I didn't feel anything with my quirk, but just to be safe I held my hand there for roughly three minutes before punching the bag again.

"Hmm... 150j. No change, though that's no surprise."

I casually looked over at Izuku and All-Might as the former did some basic exercises while the latter guided him. Izuku had come a long way since Junior High; he had a little more confidence than in canon before getting One for All, but he had still been rather submissive to Bakugo. Once he got it, though, the difference was night and day, and already he had made far more progress than in canon.

_Who knows, he might be ready to go for Full Cowling before the sports festival. _

All the more reason for me to work on my own quirk; I knew that eventually Izuku would leave everyone in the dust in terms of raw power, myself included, but I didn't intend to let that be an excuse to not increase and improve my own quirk to its logical limits and beyond. I repeated the stovetop experiment a couple of more times just to make sure, getting the same results as before. With that out of the way, I turned the portable stove off and moved to a small firepit I'd made in the sand with various bits of tinder; after igniting it with the aid of a lighter, I began the next test.

"Heat with flame..."

As I held my hands over the fire, I felt the same lack of energy gain, confirmed when the control numbers didn't change. Sighing, I put out the fire with a bucket of water, then turned off the phone.

* * *

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,752**

_One of the more frustrating limitations in trying to understand my weakness to energy-based attacks is that there's no real way to replicate anything beyond just basic fire. Aoyama's navel laser didn't give me anything, but while I would definitely bet that the same will apply to other forms of energy, science doesn't operate on assumptions. I can't definitively state that the weakness extends to all forms of energy without further testing, but again there's not exactly any way to test it. With that in mind, I'm focusing on designing a defense based around the assumption just in case; I can't make the materials on my own—I'll need the help of the support class for that—but I can at least get some designs jotted down._

_The first and most obvious solution is some sort of ablative material that will "burn away" upon being struck by energy attacks; I've read some interesting things about (theoretical) regenerative ablative material in hero science magazines, and odds are Mei Hatsume will have some idea of how to make something like that if poss—_

"Ow!"

I winced in pain and stuck my finger in my mouth; suddenly, having a minor epiphany, I took it out and looked at the papercut.

_...possible. Also, I think I just discovered another potential weakness, one that I might be able to fix more readily._

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,753**

_As I suspected based on the papercut and from further testing, it seems my quirk doesn't protect me from cutting attacks; in the event I encounter Stain (I have a few ideas on how to head that particular problem off at the pass), that'll be a serious issue. As such, I decided on a workable defense: cloth padding lining my costume. If gambeson armor worked in the days of swords, it'll work for me. While I obviously I can't go for the full thickness at the moment without potentially sacrificing my mobility—I'll have to trust in my ability to dodge for now and avoid direct hits—it should give me just enough protection until I can meet Hatsume and get some form of Kevlar or something. Getting the fabric is simple enough—there's a crafting store in Shibuya that caught my eye and should have what I need—but actually making the alterations to my costume will most likely consume the entire rest of the weekend._

_There's one last issue that cost me the match against Momo and Aoyama: a lack of tactical skill and knowledge. Of course, going up against the best tactician in 1-A didn't help, but there is absolutely a ton of room for improvement on my end. I've asked All-Might to give Izuku and I some pointers on tactics, and checked out several books from the local library (holy cow, I've been here for six years and it still blows my mind that they still have those in this day and age) involving strategy. None of that will really help as much as actual experience will, but it should provide a basic level of general understanding that I can build off of in the future. I can't afford to get sloppy, not with so many bad things looming ahead._

* * *

As I left the school lunch line and looked for wherever Izuku was in the cafeteria, I was interrupted by a familiar voice:

"KEIKKUN~! Over here, come sit with us!"

Looking in the direction of the shout, I saw that it belonged to none other than Ashido, who was waving at me with a huge smile on her face; next to her sat Momo and Jiro, both of whom seemed slightly embarrassed by the ever-excitable pink girl. Across from them sat Kirishima and Kaminari, the former of which was waving as well. I briefly entertained continuing my search for my adoptive brother before deciding to accept the invitation; it made sense to get to know my fellow classmates better after all (well, more like getting them to know me, since I recalled their personalities in the anime). Seeing an open spot across from Momo, I slid in next to Kirishima and sat down with my tray as Ashido continued her best impression of a chipmunk on a caffeine overload.

"So how's it going, Keikkun? Where's Izukkun? Ooh, what did you get for lunch—"

"Before you go any further," Jiro said, "maybe you should ask if he's actually okay with that nickname you gave him."

Ashido turned to look at the punk rock girl as if she were insane. "Whaaat? But it's such a cute nickname..."

I chuckled nervously. "Hey, it's alright, I don't mind. I've honestly never had a nickname before, anyway."

The pink girl beamed at me before turning back to Jiro. "See? He's fine with it!... OOH WAIT! I just thought of something even better!"

Before anyone could interrupt, she pointed at me before pointing at my two fellow guys in turn. "Casey—Keikkun... Kaminari... and Kirishima! Two of you have a 'K' in your names if you write them in English letters, and Casey written in Japanese starts with 'Kei'!"

_Oh, please don't suggest what I suspect you are..._

"KEI-KEI-KEI!"

it took every ounce of strength I had not to facepalm at that. Before I could explain the issue with it, Momo spoke up for me. "Umm... Ashido, I don't think that's a good name, considering it's also the name of a terrorist organization from the 20th and 21st centuries."

Kirishima looked at her in confusion. "Huh? Where'd you learn that?"

"From a history book. I read a lot. Heck, I spend a lot of time at the library—"

I found myself leaning in a bit at that. "Wait, you too? I thought I was the only one here who still hung out there..."

She smiled happily. "Of course! Why restrict your studies to school when there's so much more to learn out there?"

Kaminari rolled his eyes a bit. "Because there's so much better to do with your time off..."

"Like what?" I asked.

"Well, on weekends I usually head to Shimokitazawa* and check out the concert venues there; They usually have some pretty decent music playing every night."

"I've never really spent that much time in that area," I said. "What sort of music do you like?"

"Electronic stuff, rave music, things like that."

It was now Jiro's turn to roll her eyes. "Hmph. I prefer the rock venues, especially the ones playing covers of 20th-century stuff."

"Wait," Kaminari blinked, "isn't that stuff, like, super-old?"

Jiro's response was a slap to the face via her earlobes. "Don't disrespect the classics! If you'd listened to X's** earlier stuff before they lost Taiji, or even western groups like the Clash, you'd ditch your mass-marketed crap in a heartbeat."

"Holy crap," I said, "You just named one of my favorite metal bands and one of my favorite punk bands."

She looked at me with a mix of surprise and suspicion. "Yeah? Or are you just saying that? If you're such a fan, what are your favorite songs of theirs?"

It took me zero seconds to respond. "'Sadistic Desire' for X, and every single song on 'London Calling' by the Clash."

That got a slight smirk. "Good taste on the first part, but 'Give 'em Enough Rope' was the better Clash album."

"SANKEI!"

All eyes turned back to Ashido, who had leapt out of her seat, thrusting her fist in the air with exaggerated drama. Momo was the first to respond. "...Were you spending this entire conversation trying to think up a new nickname?"

"Heehee~! Nah, I got most of it," Ashido said, sitting back down with a giggle before turning to me. "I'm surprised, though, Keikkun—you have kind of interesting tastes!"

Kirishima flashed his signature toothy grin as well. "Yeah, definitely! Metal is about as manly as music can get!"

Kaminari sighed a bit. "Well, I gotta admit, I like a little bit of rock here and there. They have a few venues around the Shimokitazawa area, too, but I haven't been to one in a long time. Maybe we should all go to one next weekend?"

Everyone nodded at the suggestion, though Jiro had one last remark. "Okay, fine, but I'm picking the venue—I don't trust Kaminari's taste."

Before the electric boy could retort, the school alarm blared; it didn't take me long to realize what it meant. _Crap! I forgot about the infiltration thing! _As everyone made their way to the doors in a panic, we found ourselves starting to feel the crush of the crowd. As the press of bodies started making things rather uncomfortable, I found myself looking around for a certain bespectacled student. _Dammit, Iida, where are you?_

To my surprise, it wasn't Iida who floated above the crowd, but Izuku; as he reached the ceiling, he pushed off and ran across the top of the crowd to the emergency exit, standing there confidently and shouting. "EVERYONE STAY CALM! IT'S JUST THE PRESS!"

No one was more shocked than me. I mean, I was aware of how much my brother had changed from canon and how much faster he'd progressed since gaining One for All, but this particular butterfly took me completely by surprise. Even more surprising was the stark difference between how he looked up there and how Iida looked in the anime and manga; whereas the latter looked super-awkward and kind of stupid up there, Izuku looked... well, the closest comparison I could think of right off-bat was that of a proud general standing above his loyal troops, giving confidence in a nervous moment. In short, he looked like a genuine leader. Like a hero.

Kirishima grinned widely before summing all that up in his own signature manner. "Wow, that's super-manly!"

* * *

Seeing Deku up there threw Bakugo for a loop once again; the words he'd heard during the battle training came back to him.

"_From now on, Deku is the name of a hero!"_

He felt a smoldering rage build, but for some bizarre reason he couldn't fathom, that rage seemed to slowly fizzle out the more he looked at the formerly-quirkless loser.

"Tch! He acts tough..." Bakugo averted his gaze and stoked his irritation again. _That asshole... _

More words from the battle training came to mind.

"_I used to think you were amazing, Kacchan,"_ The jerk had said._ "I used to think your confidence was something to admire, but that was just because I didn't have any when it came to you, up until the moment I got my quirk. Even though Casey helped me, you were always so far ahead and above me that I was still scared of you... but as time went on, I started to see you for who you really are." _

That part was infuriating enough; what came later on in the battle was worse.

"_You want to be a hero, but you don't act like one! Even though you're perfectly capable of it! Deep down, you know it, too! And yet, you get angry when people don't give you real respect... if you want respect, start being worthy of it! IF YOU WANT TO BE A HERO, BE HEROIC!"_

Bakugo had tried his best to tune out those words, but seeing Deku standing above everyone else brought them back; the thought of them stoked his anger again. _That bastard! What the hell does he know? He's still a weakling..._

That, above all else, became Bakugo's internal mantra for the rest of the day. And yet, it did nothing to drown out Deku's words.

* * *

_**Next up is the USJ arc, and the first genuine derail! **_

_***Shimokitazawa is an entertainment and fashion district in Tokyo, known for its fashion shops and live concert venues. It seemed appropriate.**_

_**** Known outside of Japan as "X Japan" to differentiate them from the American punk band "X". Taiji Sawada was their bassist, and one of the most badass bassists ever to walk the earth.**_


	11. Breakdown

**A/N:****_USJ TIME! I've been looking forward to doing this story arc, and thus far it was the most fun to write. Hopefully you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it!_**

* * *

Izuku suppressed a chuckle at Iida's over-seriousness with regards to boarding the bus to the rescue training site; while Izuku had reluctantly accepted the elected position of class representative and was determined to do the position justice, he was more than willing to allow Iida (in his capacity as deputy) to handle things like this from time to time—especially since he felt that his bespectacled classmate seemed to enjoy it. The latter's spirits were somewhat dampened, however, by the unorthodox seating on the bus derailing his boarding plans completely. As the bus began moving, he couldn't help but think about how excited he was for this particular training.

_Rescue training... _

A smile came over him.

_It's happening, it's really happening. I still have trouble believing it; here it is, the first real step toward being just like All Might. Battle training is one thing, but... learning to save lives, learning to protect and aid people in need is so much more important. All Might... I promise, your trust in me won't be misplaced. I'll learn as much as I can from today's training, and one day people will be inspired by my fearless smile; one day, I'll be able to bring hope to others and save people the way you do._

"...speaking of which, isn't Izukkun's power a lot like All Might's?"

Izuku snapped out of his reverie and immediately went into a mild panic at Ashido's observation; looking across at his brother, Izuku could see that Casey had an odd expression of his own, though there was a bit of amusement there as well.

"O-of course not!" Izuku protested, trying his best not to let his panic give anything away. "I mean, sure, I get what you're saying, but there are plenty of quirk users with super-strength out there, it's not that unique a quirk...!"

"You do have a point there, ribbit," Asui observed. "I mean, if you think about it, super-strength is one of the most commonplace quirks out there. There are plenty of flashier powers than that."

Kirishima smiled. "Well, if any of us have flashy quirks perfect for pros, it's Todoroki and Bakugo!"

"True, but Bakugo's too angry and short-tempered, so he'll never be that popular, ribbit."

Izuku braced himself for the outburst, only to be startled by an uncharacteristic silence from the explosive boy; looking over in Bakugo's direction, he noticed a strange expression on the latter's face, one he couldn't quite identify.

"You said it," Kaminari laughed. "I mean, come on, he's as overblown as they come..."

The look on Bakugo's face shifted a bit, and suddenly Izuku realized to his dismay what the expression was: Humiliation. No, not just humiliation, not just wounded pride, Bakugo was genuinely looking _wounded,_ period. A part of Izuku—the part that recalled all the times he'd been bullied and threatened—told him that it was deserved karma. Another part of him—the part that sought justice to answer injustice—agreed with the first. The third part was the quietest voice of all... but even so, it was the one that Izuku chose to listen to above the other two. It was a voice that, in his mind, sounded not unlike All Might—the voice of a hero. _This isn't right,_ the voice said. _Kacchan definitely _wants_ to be a hero, even though he doesn't act like it; that alone doesn't forgive his actions, but it also means there's still a chance for him to be better. He does still need to be brought down a peg or two, but not like this. _No one_ deserves to be bullied, intentionally or unintentionally. No one. _Izuku began to speak up in Bakugo's defense when Kirishima evidently decided to do it for him.

"Hey now, why you all gotta be like that?" Kirishima frowned a bit at the rest of the class before looking to Bakugo with a toothy grin. "I mean, sure, Bakugo's got his faults, but he's got more guts than most of us! That's gotta count for something, right?"

Looking up at his former bully, Izuku noticed yet another shift in expression from him, but this one was far too cryptic to decipher. He then shared a glance with his brother; Casey didn't say anything, but his expression said enough. Clearly, Casey still thought that Bakugo wasn't worth the effort, that Bakugo would never change and it was pointless to try. _He can think that all he likes. Whether it's true or not though, it won't stop me from trying. A hero tries to save everyone he can, no matter what. Right, All Might?_

* * *

I resisted the urge to groan in frustration at Izuku; even though I'd decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, I still couldn't imagine Lord Explosion Murder changing anytime soon. I'm pretty sure I saw the same sort of expression on Bakugo's face that Izuku did—and it was definitely a different reaction than in canon—but in my mind, that didn't mean much. _So he's sulking instead of raging. So what? He's still the same asshole, and it serves him right to be on the receiving end._ I shared a look with Izuku. _Bro, don't get me wrong. I admire the hell out of you, and the fact that you're trying to save him in spite of how he treated you all these years is proof of how heroic you are. But you can't save everyone..._ That last thought brought a shiver down my spine, and for a moment I felt somewhat nauseous, but I didn't quite know why.

As we arrived at the facility, I did my best to hide my tension; this was the big one, the first real actual life-or-death battle, one that we couldn't win. It would be brutal, it would be bloody, and—assuming canon didn't get too far derailed—we would only survive by pure luck that the teachers arrive in time to stop us from dying. The most we could do would be to avoid death long enough for the cavalry to save us, and even that would be an uphill climb. With all that in mind, it was a miracle I was able to stop myself from shaking in my boots, and even more of a miracle that I was able to at least pretend to pay attention to Thirteen's explanation.

Then it happened. A black hole appeared across the way, and villains poured out of it _up was down was left was right..._

I shook my head, and found myself blinking and averting my eyes a bit. Was this just fear of the villains, or something else? My heart started beating faster, and it took a lot for me to get it under control. Finally, just as the villains stopped coming and Aizawa sprang into action, I pulled myself together. _Alright, if I run fast enough with the help of my quirk, I might be able to make it to the door in time—_

But I was too late. Kurogiri appeared with a WHOOSH, and suddenly my heart was beating, pounding in my _up was down was left was right_ chest, I couldn't breathe _today was tomorrow was yesterday_ I was shaking uncontrollably and I _was falling into nothing, I was an old man, I was a baby, I was old again, then I was me and then not me and then me again and up was down was left was right_ felt sweat pouring down my face and I felt like throwing up _turning, twisting, tumbling, spinning,_ _falling, falling, oh God oh God help me, it hurts, please no, wake up wake up no please, mom, dad, wake up, get up please, flat and twisted with bones sticking out and blood everywhere and nonononono..._

* * *

Todoroki kept his cool as he took note of the current situation; Mr. Aizawa seemed to have the situation down below well in-hand, but where the class stood conditions were less than optimal. One of the villains suddenly appeared in between them and the exit—obviously, he had some form of portal-based quirk—and implied, intentionally or not, that he and his compatriots had come with the intention of killing All Might. Todoroki doubted highly that they could succeed, but to automatically assume such a thing were impossible would be unwise. To make matters worse, the villains were somehow jamming their communications—which explained why this particular villain was blocking their exit, no sense letting anyone escape to potentially bring reinforcement. Finally, one of his classmates, Izuku Midoriya's brother, was experiencing some form of breakdown and was currently on the ground, panting and shivering and occasionally crying out.

_He seemed to be triggered by the villain; why? Whatever his problem is, it's not just fear—this is something far more serious and far less controllable. _

The worst part about the whole situation with Midoriya was that it added to the group's vulnerability; with one of their own helpless, their ability to fight back or escape would be hampered by having to also protect him, and if the villain were smart—judging from what Todoroki had seen so far, a fair assumption—he'd go straight for Casey if the group were careless enough to leave an opening, and the loss of a classmate would further destabilize them and make everyone easier to dispose of. Then, before anyone could do anything, Kirishima and Bakugo had to go and be stupid, attacking the villain head-on. Next thing Todoroki knew, he was in the rockslide area surrounded by villains, completely on his own, with a cliff to his back.

No, not an optimal situation at all. _For them._

A second later, the villains surrounding him were frozen solid, along with most of the ground. Hardly the cream of the evil crop; he doubted he could get definitive answers from such lowlifes—these incompetents probably weren't told anything terribly important about whatever plan was in place—but he decided that it couldn't hurt to ask. As he stepped forward, however, a sudden shift in the ground nearby alerted him to a new complication as a villain wearing a skull mask leapt out of the ground nearby, sparking with electricity; Todoroki responded with another wave of ice, only for the villain to dodge effortlessly and attempt to close the distance, stopped only by a hastily-erected ice wall.

_Damn, this one's competent. _

"Nice moves, kid. Too bad they won't save you from me!"

"That remains to be seen," Todoroki responded coolly. "Your quirk is only a threat if you can touch me. mine, on the other hand..."

The villain was forced to back off as a series of frozen spikes erupted under his feet, giving Todoroki breathing room. _At least this one might be important enough to have decent information. Hopefully he'll still be capable of responding by the time I'm done with him._

* * *

"Obviously, they didn't know what our quirks were, or else they would've sent me to the fire place instead of the water zone, ribbit."

Kaminari responded to Asui's observation with mild panic. "What difference does that make? You're the only one of us who can fight in the water, and there are a bunch of them out there just waiting for us!"

The frog girl tilted her head in response. "Ribbit... so maybe we should just wait for the teachers to notice something's up and come to the rescue?"

"That'd be fine if we could get a signal out, but they're jamming us, remember? Odds are no one knows anything's wrong at all!"

"I have a better idea," Jiro responded casually. "You're basically a human stun gun, right?"

"Yeah, but so whaaaAAAAAAA_AAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"_

With an unceremonious kick from the punk rock girl, Kaminari fell into the water, sparking on the way down. The results were shocking, to say the least, and in a flash the villains surrounding the ship were taken completely out of commission.

"Huh, I guess that worked."

"Speak for yourself, ribbit," Asui responded. "I'm the one who's gonna have to keep him from drowning now that he's all stupid."

Both Jiro and Asui sighed as they observed Kaminari, who was currently floating on his back and babbling with a blank look on his face.

* * *

"Huh, these guys weren't very strong at all," Kirishima observed. "I wonder if they planned to just overwhelm All Might?"

Momo frowned in thought as she conjured up new clothes for herself. "That's a decent thought, but there are a number of problems with it. If they went so far as to infiltrate the school and jam the alarms and communications, why use such a basic strategy? They have to know exactly how strong All Might is, and these thugs can't even deal with the three of us."

Uraraka approached the dark-haired girl in concern. "So what do you think their plan is, Yaoyorozu?"

"Impossible to say without more information. I think we may need to ask around. Hmm..."

Looking over the villains groaning in pain, Yaoyorozu spotted one that was awake enough to question but injured enough to be helpless. "Uraraka, would you mind helping this one up? He looks like he needs it."

It took a few seconds for the gravity girl to get the plan; smiling and nodding, she approached the villain and used her quirk to lift him high into the air as Kirishima stood underneath him.

"As you already know, my friend here has a rather hard head—"

"Hey, low blow, Yaomomo!"

"Sorry. In any case, I imagine it'd be rather painful if my friend let you go only to fall and break something. Speaking of which," Momo said as she turned to the girl in question with a smirk, her voice still audible to their prisoner, "How much longer do you think you can hold him?"

Uraraka made a show of thinking before smiling back. "Hmm... not much longer. I'm getting a little tired of holding him up."

The villain could only flail helplessly as Momo smiled up at him again. "Well, in that case, want to talk before gravity takes over again?"

* * *

"Casey? Casey! Come on, snap out of it and talk to me!"

Bakugo grunted in annoyance as Deku tried in vain to get the Fake Midoriya to respond to him. From the moment the villains showed up to the point where he, Deku, and the Fake found themselves inside a ruined building, the dumb foreigner had done nothing but shake, mutter, cry, and occasionally shout in fear, all with a bizarre expression on his face, like he was off somewhere else.

"Tch! Forget it, Deku, he can't hear you. Oh, now what?!"

Bakugo responded to a surprise attack from behind with an explosion large enough to send the three villains flying into a wall before looking back at the fake brothers.

Deku was still trying to console the fake. "Please, Casey, we have to move!..." After a few more attempts, Deku went silent for a few seconds and stood up. "We have to get him out of here... This dome has to have some emergency exit somewhere. If we can get there, we can alert the teachers, get Casey some help—"

Bakugo grunted in annoyance again. "I'm not running! That warpy bastard needs to be taught a lesson!"

"What? But Casey's still out of it!" Deku looked at his fake brother in... well, not like Bakugo cared—he didn't care at all, really—but it almost looked like fear. "That villain was definitely in charge of the others, and seemed a lot more competent. We can't take him on and protect Casey at the same time!"

"Then we leave him here," Bakugo replied. "I'm not carrying his ass around..."

"We can't do that, either! If a villain came along, they'd kill him!"

Another villain, this one trying to blend into his surroundings like a chameleon, attempted to ambush them before being blown away by Bakugo. "UGH! Then just take him and run yourself!"

"There are still villains out there, we'd never make it! Kacchan, you have to help me get him out of here safely!"

"'Have to'? Fuck that," Bakugo huffed angrily. "I don't 'have' to do anything, and I'm not his babysitter. Besides, if he's weak enough that a villain scares—"

He never got to finish his sentence. Before he could remotely respond, Deku had shot up, grabbed him by the collar, and slammed him into the wall; for a split second, Bakugo could have sworn he'd seen something like lightning around him.

"DON'T YOU **DARE** CALL MY BROTHER WEAK EVER AGAIN!" Deku's face was twisted in rage. "Call me Deku all you like, make fun of me all you want, but don't you DARE do it with him!"

It took a few moments for the shock of seeing Deku like this to pass; when it did, Bakugo huffed again. "What else do you call breaking down at a time like this? Look at him, he's crying and wailing like a little kid—OOF!"

Deku slammed him against the wall again. "You don't get it! When he was eight, his parents were MURDERED by a villain who used a warping quirk! Seeing that guy must have triggered those memories, and now he's trapped in them. He's being forced to relive something _awful_, the most awful thing that can happen to a kid that age; you'd be like that too, if it had happened to you! So don't you _dare_ call him weak again!"

If he'd wanted to, he could have easily gotten out of the hold Deku had him in; it would have taken zero effort to do so. Somehow, though, the look in the green-haired loser's eyes kept Bakugo from doing it; not knowing what else to do, he just grunted in annoyance again. "Okay, so why is that my problem? Why the hell should I help you?"

"Because you want to be a hero!"

That stopped Bakugo in his tracks again, long enough that Deku was able to continue ranting at him. "I can't get him out of here on my own, Kacchan. You're one of the strongest in the class—you've beaten every villain that's come at us up to now, and you haven't broken a sweat! It wouldn't even be a challenge to clear a path for us, but no, you have your own score to settle! Heroes don't go off and leave people in need! I need you now, Kacchan! You hear me?! I NEED YOUR HELP!"

"_If you want to be a hero, BE HEROIC!"_

Deku's words from the battle training rang through Bakugo's head again. For a moment, he considered just blowing off the nerd again and going off on his own like he wanted to... but that phrase kept annoying him. After what seemed like an eternity of grappling with thoughts he did not want, Bakugo said the only thing that could sum up everything he was feeling right now:

"Dammit..."

* * *

_**As always, read and review, and I'll see you next chapter!**_


	12. Decay

**A/N:****_I'll be going to a Protomen concert over the weekend, so if I end up taking a bit longer with the next chapter it's likely due to recovery from plastic surgery after my face is melted off. All joking aside, their music has provided a lot of inspiration for later arcs in this fic, particularly with regards to the dark side of hero society. Enjoy the chapter!_**

* * *

Izuku breathed a sigh of relief as he spotted an emergency exit sign on the back wall of the dome; a number of villains had stood in the path, but Bakugo managed to defeat all of them with relative ease—even when a few attempted to run and alert their comrades that some students were attempting to escape.

_Thank Kami... if they'd gotten word to the rest of the villains here, we'd never have a chance. _

Izuku looked to Casey, who was currently on his back; the latter had been difficult to move at first, but Izuku had managed a somewhat sloppy fireman's carry that was just good enough to do the trick. As they approached the door, Izuku noticed that Casey had stopped muttering to himself; his brother had stopped crying out shortly after being carried, and while he still shivered occasionally, it was clear that his panic attack was slowly subsiding. Upon reaching the door, Izuku gently laid his brother down against the back wall and observed his expression; it was still distant and full of fear, but...

"Casey," Izuku said, looking at his brother, "it's okay now. Everything is going to be just fine... I'm here."

At that, Casey blinked a bit and seemed to perk up a little. Izuku startled slightly at the response from his brother; Casey wasn't quite conscious yet, but he was getting there. _How did that fix him...? Wait. All Might was the one who saved him that day..._

Izuku placed his hands on Casey's shoulders and spoke as calmly and confidently as possible, drawing as much as he could on the example that inspired him. "Don't be afraid, Casey. Everything is going to be fine... because I am here."

"Wh... What...?"

That had done it. With a few more blinks and a slight shaking of his head, Casey came back to the present; Izuku felt emotion swell in him, and smiled as a few tears began to form. "Brother... you're back."

Casey looked back at him with a disoriented expression. "Izuku? What happened? Where are we..."

"Up a certain creek without a paddle, that's where," Bakugo said with a frustrated grumble. "The damn exit is sealed tight; I could probably force it open, but I'd have to hit it with a few explosions to loosen it up first."

"So why don't you?"

"Idiot," Bakugo said, not even looking at Casey, "Because if I do that, I paint a giant-ass target on all three of us. Teach is trying to keep their attention."

The Midoriya brothers followed Bakugo's finger to see a worrying sight; Izuku was the first to speak. "Mr. Aizawa's in danger!"

Their homeroom teacher was surrounded by unconscious villains and was currently facing down one of the lead villains—a strange man with hands all over him—but was being slowly overwhelmed by the remaining villains.

_He's flagging, _Izuku thought, _and there are still a lot more of them left. But he's a pro, and I'm just in training... wouldn't I make it worse?_

As things seemed to get worse for Eraserhead, Izuku gritted his teeth and started to move before he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Bro," Casey said worriedly, "please don't tell me you're planning to do what I think you are."

"You heard Bakugo; he can't get through the door without alerting the villains over there, and Mr. Aizawa can't keep them all busy for much longer. Every second counts. We need to get out of here as fast as possible and get word to the other teachers so they can come and rescue us, but we have to do it in a way that won't draw attention to this door; at the same time, if we can make Mr. Aizawa's job easier by taking some pressure off of him, it'll be easier for him to keep the enemy distracted as well."

Casey held him back again before he could take another step. "Izuku, stop! We're just trainees, we can't fight those guys! Besides, you still can't use your quirk without hurting yourself!"

"Who said anything about fighting them? All I have to do is get their attention and distract them to take pressure off of Mr. Aizawa and keep them from noticing Bakugo, then run away and hide. While I do that, you stay here and keep watch in case villains come here to stop Bakugo from getting those doors open, and I'll try and follow as soon as I can get away from the ones I pull off of Mr. Aizawa."

"Izuku—" Casey said before stopping and sighing. "Dammit, you're not going to listen, are you? If you're so insistent on doing this, then... just promise me you'll keep your distance and not get surrounded, okay? That hand guy and the black monster guy... they look like the most dangerous ones there. Whatever you do, don't get them after you, or you'll never survive."

Izuku smiled back at his brother and nodded as he ran off. "Don't worry, I'll be fine."

* * *

_Dammit... that one's just sitting there waiting,_ thought Aizawa as he considered the bizarre hand-themed villain in front of him. _He's been watching me, and he obviously intends to wait until I'm exhausted from fighting all his cronies here._

Eraserhead kept his eyes on the strange man as he effortlessly dodged and countered an attack from behind. _I've taken out most of the ranged villains; if I focus on dodging for a bit, my quirk will have time to rest... but I can't keep that up forever._

Suddenly, the mystery villain charged him; clearly, whoever the man was he'd seen enough and was ready to make his move. Grumbling under his breath, Aizawa prepared to use his scarf when something both wholly unexpected and intensely worrying happened:

"HEY! Over here! Looking for a fight? Come get me!"

Aizawa's composure very nearly slipped as he reacted in a mix of anger and horror. _Dammit, Midoriya...! _"IDIOT! Get the hell out of here!"

His wayward student listened, but it was clearly not enough to prevent a not-insignificant number of villains from chasing him... _Wait. Don't tell me he's trying to draw them away from me? Stupid kid!_ Knowing there was little he could do, Aizawa decided to take what little advantage he could get with the brief distraction to put distance between him and the hand-villain, as well as to get in the way of any of the remaining minor villains that might try to follow the boy as well. Fortunately, most of the villains still standing were wary of him by now, enough that he was able to get a few precious moments to breathe and rest his eyes before going after the clear leader. The villain in question had a bizarre stance, his palms open wide and stretched forward—_judging by the hand theme, I'm guessing his quirk is touch-based; stay out of hand range, use flanking attacks and kicks with the occasional scarf flourish to keep him at a safe distance—_but the man's movements were well-coordinated and had clear intent. This was no random thug, nor a self-taught instinctual fighter; someone taught this man how to fight. Someone good.

_Someone _very_ good, _Aizawa thought bitterly as he desperately tried to gain the upper hand against his opponent; _whoever taught this guy was obviously a genuine master of hand-to-hand combat. He knows precisely how to move and dodge efficiently, and it's clear he knows how to lean back with a hit rather than tank it._ Had he gone into the fight fresh, Eraserhead was certain he could have dealt with the villain with relative ease; as talented and obviously trained as he was, the villain was clearly much younger than him, and the lack of experience did show with every other move or so. Unfortunately, fending off opponents from all directions for a few minutes beforehand had drained him enough to level the playing field a bit, and while he had managed to avoid any hand contact Aizawa was certain that it was only a matter of time before the villain connected, and when that happened he might not have enough left in the tank to erase whatever quirk the guy had before he learned what that quirk was the hard way.

"Heeheeheehee~! Eraserhead, you really are so cool~!" The freak let out a truly unsettling giggle as the fight progressed. "Even after all the fighting you've done already, you're still putting up one hell of a fight against me..."

"I haven't even started," Aizawa snarled.

This set off another hideous laugh. "Keheheheh~! Brave words, but it's obvious you're slowing down. I bet you can't wait to see what my quirk is, right? You'll love it, I guarantee it!"

_Fine day to be late for class, All Might... if someone doesn't come soon, we might all die here._

"By the way, Eraserhead, I wanted to introduce you to Nomu, but I'm having way too much fun right now... so how about I send him to entertain your precious student? NOMU! Play tag with the green-headed brat!"

Aizawa had just enough time to turn in horror to see the gigantic bird-like monstrosity that had managed to get behind him take off after Midoriya... before his opponent took advantage of his distraction to place a hand on his face.

**"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHH!"**

One half of his face felt like it was being eaten away by acid, and though he managed to recover from the agony quickly enough to pull away, the villain managed to place two hands on his left forearm, causing it to begin to decay as well; it took every ounce of strength he had not to pass out, and even after he somehow escaped the villain's grasp and put some distance between them, Aizawa knew he was going to lose.

_Dammit... I can't feel my right eye. Can't even open it... I think... I think it's gone. Most of it, anyway... my left arm is useless, too._

The pain was starting to overcome him and threatened to make him pass out altogether; with heroic willpower, he just barely managed to stay standing. _No... can't stop now. This guy is clearly a sadist in every sense of the word; pain and suffering are a game to him. As long as I'm awake and standing, I'm an interesting enough toy to keep his attention off the kids..._

As Eraserhead prepared for his final battle, he let out a prayer that he never thought he'd make, to a hero he'd always looked down on:

_All Might... I need you. Please, get here and save them... save my kids..._

* * *

_**The USJ incident ends next chapter! Read and review!**_


	13. Destruction

**A/N:****_Sorry about the wait! I needed some advice on how to finish this arc. Enjoy!_**

* * *

Izuku breathed a sigh of relief; it hadn't been easy, but he'd managed to lose the villains he'd pulled off of Mr. Aizawa by hiding in what appeared to be a ruined office building with a three-story parking garage attached. He hadn't even needed to use One for All—a good thing, considering he still hadn't mastered it.

_But I did feel a little faster than normal a couple of times back there,_ Izuku thought. _It definitely wasn't normal; maybe it was instinctual? My legs aren't broken, but there's some soreness to them..._

He shook his head. This was not the time for analysis; he could worry about that later. Casey and Bakugo were waiting for him to get back to them._ All I to do is sit here for a little bit and rest—_

A sudden, inhuman roar alerted him to a threat immediately behind the wall he was leaning against; he leapt clear just in time to see a black and monstrous shape crash through it, staring right at him. _That's the big bird-like villain! I've got to get out of here!_

With the speed that only fear and adrenaline could grant, Izuku ran for the nearest exit, the hulking abomination a hair's breadth behind him. As he fled, he noticed that the monstrous villain didn't even stop for walls in its path, even ones that seemed load-bearing—and a plan quickly came to mind.

_The parking garage! This guy seems to be pretty invulnerable; he'd have to be if he really is intended to be a weapon against All-Might. In that case, about the only thing that would stop him would be to drop the roof on him. He clearly doesn't have much intelligence; if I could just get him to crash through a few pillars in the garage..._

An idea that was easier said than done, considering how closely the villain was chasing him. He would have to play it carefully, making sure that the last pillar was close enough to the exit that he could get out from under the garage in time to avoid being crushed along with the villain.

If he survived that long...

* * *

I had been standing watch as Bakugo alternated between setting off a couple of small explosions on the emergency exit door to loosen it up and trying to force the doors open. It was slow going, but progress was clearly being made. I couldn't see Mr. Aizawa anymore—the battle between him and Shigaraki must have moved out of my line of sight—but at least that meant that the latter couldn't see us and try to stop us.

"How's the door coming?"

"Shut up and keep watch," Bakugo grumbled back; "I can't do a damn thing if you two weaklings keep distracting me."

_'You two'? Did he seriously tune out the part where Izuku left? Asshole..._

Suddenly, a distant rumbling alerted me to something going on in a building within my line of sight; a cold feeling came over me, and somehow I knew that Izuku was there. _But what could have done that much damage—Oh no. Oh God, no..._

There was only one answer I could think of: Nomu. Izuku had somehow gotten that monster's attention, and was fighting for his life; there was no way I could stand there and let my brother die. For a moment, I looked back at Bakugo, thinking to alert him to the problem... only for my voice to catch in my throat.

_No. He doesn't care; he didn't even know Izuku left. He's still working on that door while my brother might be dying._ I ground my teeth a bit. _Fuck him, let him do what he wants and figure out what happened later; I'll save Izuku without his help._

Without a second thought, I turned and charged in the direction of the battle, praying that I wouldn't be too late. As I got closer to the sounds of battle, I noticed that they were coming from a parking garage—or, at least, a simulation of one. Knowing I couldn't waste any time, I punched my fists together to activate the vibro-rig for a quick extra boost of kinetic energy before using the same trick I used in the assessment test; using a little bit of energy to increase the force with which one foot pushed off the ground, then absorbing the energy from the next step hitting the ground, gaining speed and force with each stride. The closer I got to the parking garage, the greater my worry for Izuku; as I began to close in on the building, I spied two shapes—one gigantic, the other small—chasing each other around, the former smashing through pillars in an attempt to grab and crush the latter. With every step, the shapes became clearer until I could clearly see their identities, confirming my worst fears: Izuku was desperately trying to escape from Nomu, who was never more than a couple of feet from him. _It's a miracle he's lasted this long against that beast,_ I thought; _Why isn't Izuku leaving that building—_

I quickly realized what my brother's strategy was: he was going to drop a parking garage on Nomu's head. Considering the amount of punishment Nomu took from All-Might in canon, I doubted that would seriously injure the freak of nature, but it's not like there was much of a better plan than that. As I closed in further, my heart leapt into my throat; Izuku had managed to get the creature to break one more pillar—just enough to cause the telltale rumbling of a building about to collapse—but a large bit of falling rubble forced him to dive, and Nomu took the opportunity to close in for the kill.

Pushing my quirk as hard as I could, I reached Izuku just in time to grab him and pull him out of the monster's way, then leapt back with all the kinetic energy I had built up just as three stories' worth of concrete collapsed on Nomu's head.

Izuku lay there on the ground for a few seconds, catching our breath; it was Izuku who broke the silence. "Brother... are you... okay...?"

"Am _I_ okay?! You nearly died, Izuku!" Anger born of worry quickly faded into worry mixed with relief. "Bro... don't ever scare me like that again."

Izuku responded with a weary smile and a chuckle. "Don't worry, I'll be more careful from now on. Come on, we need to get back to Kacchan—"

Our relief turned to horror as Nomu erupted from the massive pile of rubble with a terrifying roar; horror intensified into damn near pants-wetting terror as we realized that it was virtually unharmed, save for a tiny crack at the edge of the exposed brain.

Three stories of concrete, right on top of its head, all that weight focused on that one point, and all it did was make a tiny little crack. But more importantly, it was clearly _pissed._ And we were both far too exhausted to move an inch.

Before the hulking thing could move to kill us both, a distant boom rang out, immediately followed by something red slamming into Nomu's side.

"BANZAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIII!"

Kirishima shouted in glee as he collided like a human cannonball right into Nomu before landing back on his feet somehow, floating strangely for a second before he dropped; looking in the direction of the boom, I saw Momo and Uraraka standing next to a person-sized cannon.

_Holy crap... that's brilliant. Uraraka used her quirk to lighten Kirishima, then loaded him into the cannon Momo must have created, then fired him at Nomu with his hardening quirk activated; that's not just a fastball special, that's a freaking RAILGUN!_

Our glorious red-headed friend pumped his fist and grinned in victory. "Yeah! How'd you like that, you monster?"

Unfortunately, the only thing the attack did was distract it, and now Nomu turned its attention onto Kirishima. Still unable to move, we watched as Kirishima tried to dodge its blow, only missing it by a hair... and then more welcome intervention came as the beast was suddenly encased from head to toe in ice.

"Hmph. This was your big plan? This pitiful thing was meant to kill All-Might?"

Izuku and I managed to scramble unsteadily to our feet as Kirishima smiled at the icy-hot emo. "Todoroki! Talk about a manly entrance!"

"I managed to defeat the villain who was jamming our communications," Todoroki said in his usual matter-of-fact tone. "With him out of the way, the alarms should alert the faculty; they ought to be here soon."

"Not soon enough, kiddies... heheheh..."

* * *

Bakugo growled in frustration as the door continued to resist his attempts to open it.

"DAMN IT! Open up, you stupid door!"

With an angry kick, Bakugo turned to look at the fake brothers, intending to yell at them for not helping... only to see that they had run off while his back was turned.

_Those losers! First they make me run away from a fight, then they tell me to waste my time with this damn door, then they leave me here to do their dirty work?!_

As he looked around, his eyes landed on a sight that infuriated him even more: the fake brothers were now in a standoff with the giant villain and that hand guy. The former was frozen from head to toe, and the latter had... something in his grip, but Bakugo didn't care enough to wonder about it. Only one thing mattered to him.

"THOSE FUCKING LOSERS!"

They had left him to do the work of a coward and weakling while they ran off to do the fighting and take the glory. His rage boiled over, and before he knew it he was blasting off toward the beast.

* * *

A chill ran down my spine as we all turned to see Shigaraki holding none other than Mr. Aizawa by the neck, both hands around his throat save for his index fingers. Eraserhead looked beyond horrifying, and my stomach nearly turned at the sight; his right eye was a rotting, crumbling hole, and his left arm from the elbow down was crumbling into bloody dust. And still he was somehow awake.

Shigaraki let out an insane giggle. "Heehee~! You've all had your fun, but playtime is over; with my quirk, anything I touch with all five fingers decays into nothing. Surrender now, or your precious teacher dies!"

"D-don't... listen to him... if you... surrender, he'll... k-kill all of us... anyway." Aizawa was clearly struggling just to talk at all. "F-forget about... me... j-just... run..."

Kirishima turned to Shigaraki in rage. "Like hell we'll run! We took down your buddy, we'll take you down too—"

The shattering of ice interrupted Kirishima as Nomu broke one arm free and snatched him up into a one-armed bear hug.

"You were saying~? Looks to me like you have even less of a choice now!"

"DEKU YOU BASTAAAAAARD!"

We whipped around to see Bakugo flying through the air like a cannonball, straight at Nomu's head; before anyone could react, he landed on its back, pressed his hand against its skull, and shouted in rage.

"DIIIIIIIIE!"

With a loud bang, Nomu's head shattered into a million pieces, along with the rest of his body; Kirishima was caught in the blast as well, and was sent flying several feet before landing in a heap, unconscious but alive. Shock poured over all of us, but not before we heard a snarl of pure rage from Shigaraki.

"Nomu... my Nomu... you broke him! You broke Nomu! YOU BROKE MY NOMU!"

Before anyone could stop him, he pressed his index fingers against Mr. Aizawa's neck... and with a sickening sight that none of us would ever forget, our teacher was dead.

"You broke my Nomu... I broke your teacher... NOW I'LL BREAK YOU!"

_Bang! Bang! _

Two shots rang out, piercing Shigaraki through both shoulders; our eyes temporarily averted from the sight of our teacher's broken body, we saw the rest of the teaching staff plus All-Might standing at the entrance, looking down at us.

"No... nonononono. Game over! Game over! KUROGIRI!"

"Tomura Shigaraki. Time to leave."

I averted my eyes from the sight of the teleporting villain, and by the time I looked back, both were gone.

As the shock and grief poured over us I failed to notice Bakugo looking from his hands to Kirishima to Mr. Aizawa's corpse and back again with more shock than any of us.

The day was won. But the loss seemed so much greater than the victory.


	14. The Toll

**A/N:**_** I've decided to bow to some of the feedback I've received and make the SI intervene more directly from now on; as for why he hasn't done much to intervene so far, I honestly wasn't even considering that element because with regards to this fic I've really just been letting go and writing for the hell of it. That said, to help patch up the plot holes I've come up with a semi-decent rationalization as to why; it's pretty flimsy, but as I said in the author's note in the first chapter, just remember the MST3k Mantra and turn your brain off if it bothers you. That said, time to finish up this arc and move forward!**_

* * *

A long time ago, someone once told me that stupidity has little to do with actual intelligence. For the most part, stupidity lies in words, decisions, and actions (or lack thereof); as such, even smart people can be dumb as hell from time to time. Now, not to brag, but I've always been smart; before I fell into this world, I was a straight-A honor student at nearly ever subject, and being around Izuku—who's even smarter than me—only helped spur me to improve further. I had always been rather proud of my intelligence... which only made the fact of my stupidity a billion times worse, because I had absolutely zero excuse.

Now, in my defense, I had considered intervening in canon more directly in the past, but as time went by and the butterflies seemed more subtle I decided on a somewhat laissez-faire approach; after all, canon was what I knew best, and given the fact that All for One's strategic abilities are almost certainly beyond mine, I felt it best not to shake things up too much so I didn't have to worry about having to play chess against a true master. Even the USJ incident didn't worry me as much; after all, it turned out alright in canon, didn't it? Besides, the aftermath of that incident was an important step in Izuku's journey, as well as that of the rest of 1-A; it forced everyone to step up their games more than the other classes, toughened them up, etc. I had hoped that, by focusing on subtle steering, I could manipulate the butterflies until an opportunity showed itself to completely disrupt All for One's plans before he could hatch them.

Then, I broke down at a key moment, Mr. Aizawa died, and while All-Might didn't reduce his time limit, he didn't encounter Shigaraki personally long enough to pick up on the subtle clues that hinted at All for One's existence. Not only that, but with Nomu destroyed, the clues that came with that monstrosity were lost as well.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I had been a complete and utter moron; I had assumed the butterflies would continue being subtle, and now the game had changed completely.

_Well, no more of that. Both hands on the wheel from now on._

Of course, I still had to take pains as to _how_ I would intervene; I had a few ideas on how to give All-Might the info he needed without looking suspicious, but that would have to wait. For the time being, I had an appointment with the principal, who had asked me to see him in his office as soon as we got back from the USJ.

"Come in, young Midoriya."

I entered the office and bowed to the kind mouse-thingy. "You wanted to talk to me, Mr. Principal?"

"Please, call me Mr. Nezu," he said with a warm smile. "would you kindly sit down on the couch and have some tea with me? There are some things I'd like to discuss with you."

Nodding, I sat down and accepted the tea, taking a small sip as he climbed onto the opposite couch; I had never been a fan of tea back in my old world, but living in Japan gave me an appreciation for it.

After a few moments' silence, Nezu began to speak in his usual calming manner. "Before we begin, I'd like to state that you are not the only student I'm seeing today, merely the first. The incident that occurred was traumatic for everyone involved, and we will all struggle to deal with the tragic loss of Eraserhead. Now, while we do have a guidance counselor, he's mostly just there to handle inter-student disputes and the like; his temperament is too... unstable for delicate situations such as this."

I held my tongue about what I recalled of Hound Dog's rather terrifying personality from canon. "So... what is 'this', exactly? Why am I here?"

"Well, as it turns out, I have more than one PhD, and one of those is in psychiatry. Not only am I a licensed therapist, my adorable appearance and my extremely soft fur are therapeutic in and of themselves!"

The fact that he was able to say stuff like that with a perfectly straight face and a genuinely friendly smile was... odd, to say the least; as I took another sip of tea, he continued. "Now, I intend to meet regularly with you and the other students—though I will spend considerably more time with Kirishima, Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, Uraraka, and your brother, considering what all of you directly witnessed."

"Wait," I said, noticing a conspicuous absence in that list. "What about Bakugo? Are you not meeting with him?"

"He declined my aid in a manner far more colorful than I believe appropriate for a boy his age," Nezu responded. "I worry for him, to be truthful; he insisted he was perfectly fine, and yet I sensed turmoil from him. Sadly, I can't _force_ him to attend sessions if he refuses the help." The principal sighed for a moment as he poured a cup of tea for himself; taking a small sip, he continued. "Sadly, even with the progress society has made, there is still a certain stigma against seeking professional psychiatric help in this country; people too often decide that they don't need it, or that it is somehow shameful to accept aid when offered. With that in mind, would you be willing to sit with me and accept my help? I assure you, nothing you say in here will leave this room; whenever I am in the role of a therapist, I am bound by doctor-patient confidentiality."

I paused for a moment to consider it before nodding. "Yeah, I'm willing to accept. So... what do we do first?"

"Well, let's begin with something in my report I found rather troubling: your reaction to the villain known as Kurogiri."

I flinched at the memory.

"Hmm, yes, it seems you suffered an episode of some sort upon seeing his quirk. Now, having read your file, it is fairly obvious as to why you had such a response; sadly, you didn't receive much in the way of counseling over the unfortunate incident that brought you to Japan—probably an oversight. But you never sought help until now; why not?"

"Well, there were a lot of nightmares for the first year or so," I said, staring down at my teacup; "I saw a child psychiatrist for a bit and it helped—Mom definitely helped as well—but once the nightmares stopped, it just seemed... redundant, I guess. Mom offered to keep it going, but I figured that if the nightmares were over, I must have been fixed, right? I mean, that was around the time I started actually calling her 'Mom' and myself 'Midoriya' more and more frequently. I thought that meant the problem was fixed and I didn't need any more help..."

Nezu nodded. "A common assumption. So you were feeling quite happy with your life by that point?"

"I was content, yeah. I'd adjusted to living here, I learned to drink tea... heck, I even attended some Tenrikyo* service with Mom and Izuku. I felt like I was fitting in nicely, like the hurt was going away, and I guess..."

"You didn't want to jeopardize those happy feelings by bringing up bad memories," Nezu said, finishing my sentence. "Another common response. But the truth is, just because scars stop hurting doesn't mean they're not there anymore; in a way, you were ignoring them for fear of bringing them up again, but repression only serves to bottle up your emotions; that is why it all came rushing back so painfully today."

As Mr. Nezu spoke, I felt a growing sense of tension; I shivered a bit, and I felt my heart start to beat a little faster as well. I managed to get it under control, but it felt like if I talked any more it would get worse again... and suddenly, something white and furry was next to me on the couch. Seeing that I was becoming anxious, the principal had moved to my couch and sat beside me; without a word, he took my hand and placed it on his head.

"Like I said," he smiled, "I'm therapeutic."

I hesitated a bit, but as I began to pet the principal on the head I started feeling much better.

* * *

Toshinori Yagi stared out the window in silence, doing his best to withstand the fear gnawing at his heart.

Young Casey Midoriya had approached him earlier with some thoughts regarding the incident; the lad had impressed Yagi quite a bit with how observant and intelligent he was, but to notice all of this in such a short time, after having suffered such an awful experience shortly beforehand? Truly, the Midoriyas were a special pair, gifted in more ways than one.

_"According to Todoroki, those villains seemed to have a coherent game plan, all based around killing you,"_ he had said; _"But that hands guy, he seemed too unhinged to have come up with that kind of a plan. He giggled a lot, and when you showed up with the other teachers, he said 'game over'; it's almost like he's a man-child of sorts. No way this was _his_ plan."_

In spite of not having been there to personally see it, Yagi had to concur with such an assessment based on testimony from the captured villains, as well as what the other students said about the villain in question.

_"Then there's the fact that he managed to beat Mr. Aizawa; from how he described his own quirk, he would have had to fought within close-combat range with him, and Mr. Aizawa is... was... a master hand-to-hand combatant. If this Shigaraki guy beat him, he had to have been at an equal or greater level of skill, and no way that comes naturally. Someone had to have trained him, maybe even the person who came up with the plan."_

Yet another astute observation... and another worrying puzzle piece. The final, most horrifying key piece came last, however.

_"Then there's the guy's name. 'Tomura Shigaraki'... how many villains use their full name? Especially considering he and his comrades all called themselves something grandiose like the 'League of Villains'. Not to mention the obvious code names... Kurogiri, Nomu... there's no way on Earth that handy-man's real name is 'Tomura Shigaraki'. It's gotta be an alias, even if it's just something like shifting syllables around..."_

Tomura Shigaraki. Yagi had shifted the syllables around in his head on a whim; truthfully, he felt that last bit was a stretch, but it was an interesting enough idea that he had gone for it.

Tomura Shigaraki; he cursed that name, cursed the fact that he had bothered to even think of it, because the answer he came to sent him into such shock that he had ushered Casey from the room very quickly indeed, lest the boy see genuine fear cross his face.

Tomura Shigaraki. The individual name could have been a number of possibilities, but the family name, the first one that came to mind? Shimura.

Memories flooded his mind, unbidden, memories of the greatest hero he had ever known, the previous wielder of One for All. Nana Shimura... Granted, it was a stretch, and he could have been overthinking it. But combined with the other clues, it painted a terrifying picture: All for One was back. Toshinori Yagi gritted his teeth; he prayed that these fears were unwarranted, but if not... he couldn't take that chance. He had to step up Young Izuku Midoriya's training, fast.

A storm was coming, and for the first time in years, the Symbol of Peace was genuinely afraid that he would be swept away along with everyone else.

* * *

"Grrr... damn those kids... I hate them, I hate them, I hate them hate them hate them..."

**"Good. Use that hate, Tomura Shigaraki; let it build up inside of you, store it until the time is right to strike again."**

"I want to kill them all now, Master!"

**"It can't be helped; I had hoped that, if you were unable to kill All Might, you would at least have been able to learn whether or not his abilities have weakened. Unfortunately, we have no more information than we had when we began, and while the death of Eraserhead has removed a rather annoying opponent, the hero community—and UA in particular—will not take his loss lying down. They will undoubtedly double, even triple their efforts to hunt us down, as well as increase their security; it is unlikely that we will be able to move against them again for some time."**

"So we just _sit here?!"_

**"On the contrary. While we cannot move overtly without drawing unwanted attention—I am still not yet ready to make my own entrance—we must recruit new blood as soon as possible; in the event the hero community does track us down before we are ready, we will need all the allies we can get. To that end, I have sent you a number of dossiers for villains that should prove quite useful. This is only the beginning, my student... only the beginning of a long game. And soon enough, the world will kneel before you."**

* * *

A pale and portly man dressed in a mortician's suit carefully placed the urn on a rack with a number of others. "Don't worry, my dear Shouta; your friends may be receiving a pile of dust instead of your actual ashes, but you can rest in peace knowing you will make a fine addition to my collection!"

As he stood there, admiring the urn, he turned to look at the very large minion standing next to him. "Don't worry, you will have company soon enough; my precious servant will make certain of that. Ohhhh, yeeeeessss..."

* * *

_Dammit... just stop thinking about it! It's that damn simple!_

Bakugo growled and grumbled as he stomped around his backyard in the middle of the night; try as he might, he couldn't banish the images from his mind. They assaulted him every time he closed his eyes.

_Stop thinking about it!_

Kirishima, smiling at him, defending him from ridicule, then tossed like a ragdoll by his explosion quirk.

_It was his fault for not seeing me coming and hardening! Stop thinking about it!_

That handy bastard, yelling in rage at him before doing... that... to Aizawa.

_He was gonna do that anyway! Stop thinking about it!_

Chunks of frozen meat and brains, shattered by his hand.

_HE HAD IT COMING! STOP THINKING ABOUT IT!_

He'd had enough; stomping over to a baseball lying on the grass, he decided to unleash his frustration the best way he knew how; he'd charge up and throw the ball into the stratosphere, shouting the mantra he used to focus his rage into every attack...

"DI—"

His arm stopped mid-throw, shivering as the word—one simple word, one he'd said a billion times—caught in his throat. So he tried again.

"D—"

_Say it... just say it... why can't I...?_

Bakugo fell to his knees, cursing his own weakness.

* * *

_**Well, that's the end of the USJ arc. Next up, some lighter fare as the Sports Festival approaches; as hinted at with that tiny little snippet before Bakugo's scene, there will be some OC villains (well, in that case, there are a couple of obscure expys involved, a no-prize to whoever figures it out first) as well. See you next chapter!**_

_***Tenrikyo—a religion of Japanese origin that is unique for the fact that it welcomes non-native converts. Buddhism does this too, but as far as I know Tenrikyo is the only religion that originated in Japan that has non-Japanese adherents around the world.**_


	15. Starting Bell

**A/N:****_Time for the Sports Festival arc! With butterflies no longer being subtle and Aizawa dead, expect some big changes indeed. I'm still working on the preliminary match of the festival; I don't want to just rehash the cavalry battle, but in spite of asking around I can't figure out a decent replacement. As such, now is where I'll really need some feedback/ideas as to what you guys think would be a good alternative in case I can't figure out anything on my own. In the meantime, enjoy this chapter!_**

* * *

In light of Mr. Aizawa's death, we were all given about a week and a half off of school as the UA faculty tried to adjust, as well as to give time for a funeral. Mr. Aizawa's ashes were interred in a special section of a local cemetery designated for heroes who died in the line of duty; the service was somber, to say the least. Present Mic in particular looked speechless for once; it was pretty surreal to see him like that. A few days after that, classes picked back up with Present Mic being our new homeroom teacher while Snipe replaced him as the English teacher. By the time we got back in the classroom, the voice hero seemed better; he had been doing his radio shows again, and during class he'd gone back to what—on the surface, at least—seemed to be his old peppy self. Something about his smile and attitude seemed off, though, but it wasn't surprising considering he was likely still mourning his best friend. His attempts to put on a smile for our sakes helped us all, though.

There was understandably a lot of media coverage over the UA incident, and at first I worried that it would be more critical of UA as a result of things having gone far worse than in canon; instead, the coverage turned out to be quite sympathetic, which made sense considering the death of a hero would have made any news outlet that was critical of UA seem disrespectful. The hero community at large rallied over Mr. Aizawa's death, but it was clear that most of it was just for show; besides, I didn't expect All for One to make it easy to find his little group, and a raid on the cafe that had been their hideout in canon—the authorities had received an anonymous tip—revealed nothing but a recently-abandoned building with no trace of its former occupants.

With regards to the rest of canon, though, it was decided that the Sports Festival would continue as scheduled, with extra security; the only major difference (aside from the lack of Mr. Aizawa) was that the entire affair was dedicated to Mr. Aizawa's memory. With that looming over our heads, it seemed like a good idea to practice and train for the competition. The day Present Mic announced the festival to the class, Izuku and I started planning our schedule as soon as the final bell rang, only for Ashido to approach us.

"Hey, Izukkun, Keikkun?"

"Oh! Hi, Ashido," Izuku said, looking up from our notebooks; "Casey and I were about to leave. Need something?"

The pink-skinned girl gave a slight smile as she responded. "Well, not really, more of an invitation. Jirou, YaoMomo, and the other two Kei's—oh, Izukkun, that's Kaminari and Kirishima, Casey's the third—"

"Oh, he knows about that nickname, I told him."

" —Oh cool, thanks! Anyway, tomorrow night we're all going to a concert in Shimokitazawa like we talked about the day... well, the day _that_ happened," Ashido said, a frown briefly crossing her face before she continued; "I'm kind of excited; I've never been to a rock concert. You guys interested?"

I weighed the decision in my head; on the one hand, we really needed to get to training and maximize the use of time before the festival, but on the other hand, it would be a good opportunity to get some of the post-USJ angst off our minds. No sense letting that weigh us down. Looking back to Izuku for confirmation, it was clear he had the same thought process.

"Sure," I said, "sounds like fun!"

"Great! Concert's at a venue called the Basement West at 7:00. We'll meet you guys there! Ooooh, this is gonna be so awesome~!"

* * *

I'd never really heard many rock bands since arriving in this world, at least outside of the classic rock on a few radio stations, but the one we saw the night of the concert was beyond epic. The venue was pretty small, and there wasn't much in the way of stage effects, but the band played with such intensity and energy that they seemed larger than life; it ended up being just what the doctor ordered, and we all found ourselves rocking out without a care in the world.

As one of the songs died down and we received a brief pause, I looked at Jirou with an appreciative smile. "Wow, you sure knew how to pick a good concert! I didn't know there were bands like this still around..."

"You just gotta look outside the junk on the radio," the punk rock girl chuckled. "I think it's kind of comforting to know that rock will _never_ die, no matter what else happens in the world..."

I nodded. "Yeah, I get what you're saying. So much has changed so fast... and it's probably going to change even more soon enough. Knowing that music like this will always be there does give a sort of... stability, in a way."

Before we could continue the conversation, the next song began, and soon I was lost in the music and lyrics. Something about them seemed, in my mind, to match the feelings we were all having at the moment;

_"This city doesn't know what's coming, she doesn't feel the heat..."_

The feeling that the rug could be pulled out from under our feet at any time.

_"This city won't know what hit her, what knocked her out into the street..."_

The feeling that the change to come might be rough... but that we could overcome regardless if we kept our spirits up.

_"This city's thinking that it's over, she's already fast asleep...so I'm breaking out of here tonight! I'm breaking out of here..."_

As the music picked up further, we returned to just mindlessly rocking out, working out all the bad feelings and leaving only the rush of the moment. Once it was all over, we left the venue and returned home, feeling lighter than we had in ages, ready for whatever lied ahead of us; with all of the stress out of our heads, it was time to start preparing and training for the Sports Festival... along with whatever trials were to follow.

* * *

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,754**

_Today we officially began our training to prepare for the Sports Festival. All Might was more than willing to help when he could, but I decided to chime in with a suggestion of my own to Izuku in between our time with the hero; specifically, I set him on the path to Full Cowling a little early in hopes that he'd have it in time for the Festival, giving him an edge. I did this by casually pointing out that, if Muscled!All Might was due to the residual energies of One for All, that must mean he wasn't just focusing its power in one part of his body and only when he needed to attack, but that he just had it "on" all over him at all times. Izuku managed to get the concept, and while he didn't quite achieve Full Cowling right away there were a couple itty-bitty flashes of green lightning the first time he tried it, and he managed not to hurt himself to boot; taking that into consideration, he should have it down pat in no time._

_That leads me to my own training; knowing that Izuku was on the verge of unlocking some interesting new skills, I decided to experiment with unorthodox uses of my own quirk. I'd already learned the obvious uses—punching harder, running faster, etc.—but there was no way I was going to just stop there when there was still so much more to learn. To begin with, I decided to try and learn more about _how_ I impart kinetic energy into a target, and if I could control the "rate of transfer", so to speak. With a little bit of engineering know-how, I managed to rig up a machine that could measure kinetic energy over time. By focusing all my attention on the sensations of absorbing, charging, and releasing the energy, I was able to get a better feel for the rate of transfer; if I can learn to actually control it—or better yet, control how much I absorb as well—I can already think of some interesting uses I can get out of that. I even have a couple ideas lined out in detail, ready to test..._

* * *

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,757**

_Izuku achieved Full Cowling today. He wasn't sure if he could move while using it just yet, but considering it's only been a couple of days since we started it probably won't be long before he's zipping around without any trouble at all. As for me, I've increased my storage capacity up to 20,000j, and come a little farther in terms of my research on rate of transfer and related aspects of my quirk. I'm doing my best to keep it a secret—I'm even keeping it a secret from Izuku, partially for the sake of pleasantly surprising him with my new skills and partially because the best way to keep a secret is simply not to tell anyone—but it's a bit tricky hiding the shattered cinder blocks and cratered concrete slabs (courtesy of Mr. Cementoss, who was willing to make a few for me once I asked politely after literature class; the fact that he was willing to help keep it quiet was a blessing as well). I still need a bit more control, too, but all in all I think my new techniques are going to be ready soon enough. I don't intend to use them in the Festival unless I absolutely have to—no sense giving away my hidden trap cards on national TV when I can save them for future League of Villains attacks and/or the provisional exam—but it'll be nice to have something to fall back on if I need it._

_In other news, I've been keeping tabs on Stain via newspapers and other publications; there are some minor reports here and there, but it's still mostly underground—and I hope to keep it that way. Stain's public reveal did a serious number on the trust between society and its heroes, something that All for One ruthlessly exploited; if I can somehow get him dealt with before then, all the better. To that end, I made a few excuses to travel through Hosu City—he's been lurking around there, which indicates that he's close to making his canon debut—after which I intend to send an anonymous tip to Endeavor's agency claiming to have been a witness to one of his attacks, which would give me a good justification for knowing his quirk and his M.O., both of which could prove vital to ensuring his easy capture. By being in Hosu City, if the tip ever gets traced back to me I'll be able to give a convincing reason for knowing that info as well. I don't expect that Endeavor will have any trouble dealing with Stain, anyway._

_I'll send the tip tomorrow; with any luck, that'll be one big problem out of the way, and one less bit of ammunition that All for One can use against everyone..._

* * *

_Fake... fake, fake, fake. Unworthy. Worthless. False hero._

Stain stood over the paralyzed form of his newest victim, ready to kill. "You are not worthy..."

"L-look... who's talking... murderer..." The hero in question, dressed in a blue bug-themed outfit, struggled to speak, defiant to the last.

"Murderer? No... not murder, judgement. Judgment. You are unworthy—"

The sudden appearance of a tall form at the end of the alleyway distracted both of them. Upon closer inspection, the individual seemed even more imposing; standing nearly seven feet tall and massively built, the figure was dressed in a long black duster over black clothes, with grey gloves, black boots, grey knee-length spats, and a stetson hat. The ensemble gave the impression of a cowboy of sorts, but the most striking thing about him was his eyes; they were completely devoid of pupils, dark shadows surrounded them, and the utterly stone-neutral expression combined with the long black locks of hair hanging down gave an almost otherworldly impression.

Something about the man's appearance sent the hero into what seemed a state of pure shock; realizing a larger threat when he saw one, Stain pointed his sword in the man's direction. "Not one step closer. Walk away, or you die with this false hero."

The stranger didn't respond; he didn't even seem to register the hero killer's words, and simply stood there, still as a statue.

"What's the matter?" Stain asked, partly out of frustration and partly out of genuine confusion. "I'm giving you a chance to walk away. Surely you're not stupid enough to interfere?"

Still no answer.

Having had enough, Stain readied his weapon. "Fine then. Death it is."

Rushing in with blinding speed, the hero killer slashed his sword across the man's chest... but not only did the man not even attempt to move out of the way, he didn't even seem to register the cut.

"Hmph... a no-pain quirk? Doesn't matter."

Stain retreated, licked the blood off his blade, then casually approached the mystery opponent... only to be stunned himself when the man's arm shot out, gripping him tightly by the throat and lifting him easily off the ground.

"Hglk... what... how?! That's impossible...!"

The stranger paused for a moment, looking over his shoulder as if to ask a question of an unseen person, then turned his eerie gaze back to Stain.

It was over with a sickening crack, and the hero killer's lifeless body collapsed to the ground as the stranger strode very slowly over to the paralyzed hero, who finally managed to speak.

"You... you can't be... I saw...!"

The man lifted the hero by the neck in the same manner as Stain.

"It can't be you! You're—"

Another crack, and without a word the mystery man easily lifted both bodies over his shoulder and left, carrying them in dead silence to some unseen destination...

* * *

_**Read and review!**_


	16. A Hero's Heart

**A/N: _Well, I've managed to come up with a decent replacement for the cavalry battle on my own; hopefully no one else has come up with this idea before me! In any case, it's time to officially start the Sports Festival arc. Enjoy!_**

* * *

**Quirk Research Journal, entry no. 1,760**

_Well, the Sports Festival starts tomorrow; Izuku and I have been working our butts off—at an even faster rate than we did prior to the entrance exams, to make up for the short amount of time—and I have no doubt that our hard work is going to pay off. My storage capacity is now up to around 26,500j, and I've perfected both of my secret trump cards. Hopefully I won't need to use either of them—again, I'd prefer to hold them until later, so that the League of Villains and our opponents in the Provisional exam won't be able to see them coming—but if the need arises, they'll be ready. Outside of that, Izuku and I have been working on a number of dual techniques, one of which will definitely prove useful in the obstacle course. _

_In other news, a few days ago we all got called out by the other classes, as per canon—but this time, Bakugo didn't shove his way to the front to act like an asshole. Something about how quiet he's been lately worries me; Izuku says he's probably working things out due to what happened at the USJ, and that there's probably nothing to worry about, but I just can't bring myself to imagine anything other than an impending explosion—of both the literal and the metaphorical kind. Ochaco told Izuku her reasons for wanting to go pro, but I wasn't there for it—Izuku told me after we got home that evening. This wouldn't be anything to comment on normally, but lately I've been worried about not being present for canon events, because then I'm not able to see all the butterflies flying around... a mistake I don't intend to make ever again._

_Speaking of butterflies, since I sent in the anonymous tip a few days ago, no word whatsoever has been reported about Stain; either that means he was arrested and they're wisely not giving his craziness a platform, or—more likely—something else happened to stop him. There seem to be a number of disappearances in Hosu city; this can't be the work of Stain, seeing as he prefers to make a visible example of his victims. Maybe he ended up being a victim of someone else. In any case, I don't see any way to affect this yet, and besides, if Izuku and I do well enough in the Sports Festival we'll have our pick of internships and will have plenty of opportunity to check it out for ourselves. Izuku's improved enough that I'm wondering if Gran Torino will even feel the need to get involved in his training; on the one hand, his knowledge of One for All isn't insignificant. On the other, Izuku has figured out a lot on his own that he didn't in canon, and he's already achieved Full Cowling._

_I suppose we'll have to take things as they come for the time being, but I don't intend to stand idle, either; if I see something I can positively effect during the Festival, I intend to go for it. One way or another, it's time to stop holding back..._

* * *

It was minutes to go until we had to walk out into the arena for the opening ceremony to the Sports Festival, and another moment from canon decided to occur with minor butterflies: Todoroki's declaration of war. This time, I managed to get a mention in, but the statement was still directed at my brother's face.

"...however, you and your brother have All Might in your corner, helping you out. I'm not here to pry about what's going on between you three... but know that I will beat you both."

At times like these, I often wondered why some things stuck so closely to the script, but there wasn't any time to ponder it as I decided to intervene; Endeavor was one of the biggest poster boys for everything wrong with hero society and needed to be out of the way, and exposing him as a scumbag before All Might retired would likely go a long way towards preventing the League of Villains from using his reputation to disrupt hero society. But, since I couldn't exactly come right out and say that, I decided to start subtly and find some way to more directly intervene once I had a good excuse for knowing about Endeavor.

"Hey, dude, I get your declaration of war here," I said, bending into the conversation a bit; "but what I don't get is why All Might specifically enters into it. Does it have to do with your dad?"

Todoroki flinched as if he'd been slapped, but his expression didn't change. All the same, the room felt like it chilled two whole degrees for a second there. Kaminari, lovably dense as ever, didn't pick up on that change and instead shouted out what everybody already picked up on by his family name alone.

"Oh, yeah, that's right! Your dad's Endeavor, the number 2 hero! Man, talk about a name to live up to..."

This time, Todoroki's expression changed considerably, and he displayed some form of genuine anger that legitimately made me think I had just killed us all for a second before it dissipated. A tense pause came over us all, and before anyone could break the ice Todoroki stormed out of the room.

"...I'm going to wait outside."

"Wait, Todoroki—!" Izuku started off after our icy-hot classmate before being cut off by the door slamming. "...What happened just now?"

"If I had to guess," I said, "It must have had something to do with his dad. Whatever it is, I guarantee that particular father-son relationship isn't pretty. That wasn't just anger on his face, that was _hatred_. Our Todoroki has some sort of grudge against his old man, I'd wager."

To my dismay, Bakugo was the first to respond. "What the hell does it matter? He's my opponent now, I don't give a damn what his issues are..."

I had expected him to go off on a tangent of how Izuku and I were the targets of the declaration of war, but if he had one planned he didn't get to say it as Iida continued the thought. "Although I don't quite agree with the concept of discounting our classmates' possible emotional issues, Bakugo has a point. This festival is first and foremost a competition, and we should all strive to do our best, even if it means viewing our classmates as potential rivals."

_As usual, Iida, why use a few words when you can use a hundred to say the same thing,_ I thought with a sigh. "I guess you're right, though as classmates I don't think we should just ignore him if he's hurting or something; that look on his face... that's the look of someone who needs some sort of help, whether he realizes it or not. Being rivals doesn't mean you have to stop being friends, and if we're any sort of friends at all, we should try and be there if he needs it. Besides, we should all be at our best when we face each other, and he can't be at his best if he's got some sort of hangup, can he?"

"You're right," Izuku said, that determined look coming across his face. "But it'll have to wait until he cools down again. Besides, the opening ceremony will start any moment now, and we need to get our heads in the competition..."

It wasn't long after those remarks that we found ourselves marching out into the arena; I had to admit, having the eyes of the whole country watching us felt intimidating... but that was nothing compared to my brother, who—as the top-ranked student in the entrance exams—had to give a speech. I half-expected him to flop-sweat... but after what happened in the waiting room, he seemed strangely focused all of a sudden, even though he was clearly as nervous as me. By the time Midnight showed up—and my teenage body's hormones were not unaffected by her... unique mode of dress, internally mature though I was—his expression had only hardened further.

_What's he going to say, and how will it affect things?_

I'd soon find out, as Izuku stepped up to the microphone, looked over the gathered students—his gaze lingering on Uraraka, Todoroki, Bakugo, and me for a few extra seconds—then took a deep breath, and began his speech.

* * *

"We all have different reasons for wanting to be heroes; some of you want to make money to support your loved ones, some of you want to show your worth to society, and some of you have something to prove—either to yourselves or others. None of those are bad reasons in and of themselves, and everyone here has the potential to be great heroes. But out of all the different motivations here, I know of only a few who share and understand mine.

"As some of you know, I'm sort of a medical oddity; my quirk didn't show up until just last year, and up until that point I thought I was quirkless. And yet, in spite of that, I'd always dreamed of being a hero... but not to make money, or to express myself, or to prove people wrong. I wanted to be a hero... because I wanted to help people. Even so, I had to endure mockery and criticism from others; 'you can't be a hero without a quirk' was something I was told time and time again, and from time to time... some part of me listened to that. Some part of me felt they had a point, that a hero needs a quirk to be a hero.

"Then, one day, without even realizing it, I discovered otherwise; a villain attacked someone I knew, and none of the heroes present were able to do anything. I was paralyzed with fear... but when I recognized the person, and saw the look on their face, something happened to me: my legs moved of their own accord. Without thinking about it, without even willing it, I ran into danger, and as I ran I slowly realized why. I was running into danger because I couldn't just stand there and watch that person die, even if it meant risking harm to myself. It was stupid and risky, and afterwards I got a well-deserved chewing out from the pros who were there. But later that day, a hero I look up to—one of the heroes who was there—approached me, and taught me something very important: that the mark of a hero isn't in their quirk, it's in their actions. I was entirely unaware of my own quirk, I was terrified... and yet, I acted anyway out of a desire to help; that alone was heroic.

"Heroes—and by that, I don't mean 'pros', I mean true heroes, the greatest of the great, the truest of the true—are those who are willing to sacrifice their well-being for the sake of others, and do so without a second's thought or hesitation, without a thought for fame or recognition being put in front of service. They sacrifice so much... and sometimes, they sacrifice everything, as the hero Eraserhead did to save our lives at the USJ. There is no nobler thing in the world than to be willing to put yourself at risk for the sake of others. That is the lesson I was taught by the pro who I encountered the day I first acted to save someone... and after he was done giving that lesson, the pro in question told me what I had been waiting for someone to say all my life:

"'Young man... You, too, can be a hero.'

"But that doesn't just apply to me. That applies to all of us here, regardless of our motivations or reasons; each and every one of us has the potential for that same greatness and heroism, if we decide to commit to the role. One day, it'll be us in those stands, looking down at the heroes of tomorrow; we owe it to them, and to the world, to embody the heroic ideal of selfless service and courage under pressure. But to get there, we have to prove ourselves today. So give it your all in this tournament, and don't hold back... and show the world what the next generation of heroes will look like. Good luck! Go beyond! Plus Ultra!"

* * *

_Up in the stands, where the pros sit..._

"Wow, that kid's got spirit, don't you think?"

"He's naive, is what; the real world is more complicated than that."

"Yeah, fame definitely matters. Can't do hero work if you can't make money, and without fame, there's no money."

"Oh, come on, you guys are missing the point! Since when does someone like All Might—and I'll bet a million yen that's the pro the kid was referring to—care about fame over helping people?"

"All Might can afford not to worry about that, considering he's the number one."

"Still, when you think about it—"

* * *

Shoto Todoroki had been fuming only a few minutes before; his classmates had no business sticking their noses into his private issues. And yet, something about Midoriya's speech seemed to calm him a bit...

_No. I can't let semantics and pretty words distract me; I have a mission here, a goal I've set my mind on. I have to focus on that above all else. Just watch, old man; you'll regret everything soon enough. I'll show you how much your stupid power means to me..._

* * *

Todoroki wasn't the only one seething with resentment at the speech, though with regards to one Katsuki Bakugo, the emotions involved were somewhat more complicated.

On the one hand, he was dead certain that Deku had deliberately slighted him by mentioning that incident with the sludge villain. On the other, some part of him deep down—a treasonous part he hated almost as much as he hated the stupid fake brothers—told him that the weakling had a point, and that said weakling seemed almost like All Might for a second or two...

_NO! Fuck that! I'm better than him. That garbage he was spewing just proves it. I'll show him..._

* * *

"Hmph. As usual, Class 1-A tries to hog the spotlight. Ha! What an idiot, talking fluff and nonsense... I can't wait to knock those self-important morons off their pedestal—"

_WHACK!_

"Show some class before you open your mouth, Neito."

* * *

Other, kinder reactions were also displayed, along with at least two students in tears—one of them being Iida, who was dramatically weeping into his hand. "Such eloquence! Such wisdom! Truly, Izuku Midoriya has a hero's heart! We should all strive towards such a grand ideal!"

"Damn straight, Iida," said Kirishima, who was clenching his fists as testosterone-fueled tears ran down his cheeks. "What a manly speech!"

* * *

My reaction was closer to Iida's and Kirishima's than the others, but it was a feeling all its own. I didn't cry, or seethe, or make a scene; I was too in awe. At no point in the speech did my brother pause for breath, nor did he stutter or show even the remotest sign of nervousness. And there was no denying that he meant absolutely every single word of it. True, that speech was one that hero society desperately needed to hear—though how many pros actually got the lesson was likely a matter of some confusion—but for a moment, I completely forgot about that. I forgot about the future, I forgot about all the dangers awaiting us, about the butterflies, about everything... everything but Izuku.

After a few moments where his speech sank in, I found myself clapping... followed by the sound of clapping nearby, which was soon joined by more clapping.

Before I knew it, the entire stadium was cheering him on, applauding my brother. My brother, who I could never have been more proud of up to that point.

As the raucous applause died down—_Ah, there's Flustered/Panicky!Izuku again—_Midnight finally announced the rules of the obstacle course race. This time, though, there was one key difference: the number of spaces that qualified for the next round. Instead of 42 places, there were only 32. All that said, I had no doubt of our chances of success in the race as we took our places and readied ourselves for the official start of the festival.

_Time to show everyone what we're made of..._

The starting gun was fired, and just like that, we were off.

* * *

_**Writing that speech was a pain in the butt, but I think it's as good as it was going to get. What did you guys think about it? If you have even the slightest thought, make a comment about it and let me know, and I'll see you next chapter!**_


	17. Super Team-Up

_**If you haven't re-read the last chapter since it came out, please do so—I made some changes to Casey's reasoning for intervening in the "declaration of war" scene. Specifically, I changed his motivation to include exposing Endeavor as part of a larger plan to remove him from the picture before All Might retires, thus depriving the League of Villains ammunition against hero society once the Symbol of Peace was gone. I had planned for that to be a later addition once he noticed how the butterflies were setting off, but a few awesome people helped me realize that it would make more sense to have that be part of the reasoning from the start.**_

* * *

As Midoriya's speech sunk in, Present Mic felt his thoughts drift towards melancholy. He _hated_ melancholy; he was supposed to be the life of the party, the extrovert, the one who always kept things rockin' even when the chips were down... and yet, without his normal straight man, everything felt a little off. He looked to his right, where Snipe sat in Aizawa's place; Snipe had a good eye for detail and a greater skill for analysis than one might expect, but he wasn't Eraserhead. No one else would be.

_Dammit, Shouta, you just had to break up our two-man bit..._

Part of him wanted to be more silent in the festival, as some gesture of respect to his friend, a great hero the festival was being held in memory of... but he knew perfectly well what Shouta's ghost would say to him.

"_Quit whining,"_ He'd say with his usual eye-roll and dry, irritated tone. _"It was my life, and I gave it everything I had; we all know the risks going in, and there's no point in dwelling on it where it's of no use to anyone. Show respect, but don't use it as an excuse not to do your job. Those kids need you to be your usual upbeat idiot self. Take care of them for me..."_

Mic nodded silently at the invisible shade of his friend. _Don't worry, old buddy. I'll take good care of them. This concert's for you... and I'll make it one hell of a show._

As Midnight signaled the beginning of the race, he dove right into his patented style. "AAAaaand we're off to a totally rockin' start! Snipe, care to chime in with some super-cool color commentary?"

"Yer colorful enough f'r th' both o' us, Mic. But if ya want my opinion, first thing th' students oughtta watch out f'r is th' doorway out of the—"

Mic couldn't help but interrupt his co-commentator upon seeing an interesting development, as two students in particular made a rather unorthodox maneuver. Or, as he himself put it:

"WHOOOOOOOOOA! The Midoriya brothers of Class 1-A practically leapfrogged through the doorway right over the heads of their fellow students in one go! And the rest of their class is almost immediately behind them, leaving everyone else in the dust!"

_Man, if only you could see your kids, buddy. You'd be proud. Grumpy, but proud..._

* * *

During our training, Izuku and I decided we ought to try and come up with some team-up maneuvers, since One for All and my own Kinesis would naturally work well together. Of the ones we came up with, the only one we'd managed to perfect in time for the festival happened to be the one perfect for the obstacle race. As the student body all took their places in front of the doorway, Izuku and I did the last thing anyone would have considered: we made sure we stayed in the absolute back of the group when lining up so that everyone else would start getting bottlenecked ahead of us, leaving plenty of room for our little trick. Of course, we weren't the only ones to have the idea of letting the other students rush ahead; Todoroki, Bakugo, and Momo all were smart enough to at least realize this, too. But even they didn't see _this _coming.

I stood just behind Izuku; the instant the race began, I leapt using some stored-up kinetic energy I'd saved for this event, at which point Izuku used One for All Full Cowling to throw me like a fastball special. I landed just at the back of the doorway... just as planned, as the extra oomph of Izuku's quirk meant I got a serious boost off of landing, boosted further as he landed precisely on my shoulders. With a massive push-off, we were both flying clear over the heads of our classmates, and as soon as we cleared the doorway Izuku tossed me at the ground with One for All—just as I momentarily "turned off" my passive kinetic absorption so I didn't drop him out of the air when he touched me, a necessary component I learned during training—and as I landed, the chain started again. The end result was a constant forward movement powered by a combination of both our quirks, allowing us to speed each other up and launch over anything in our way... like, for instance, crowds, gaping pits, or minefields. It was a technique that was absolute _hell_ to perfect, given the insane timing and precision required, but the results spoke for themselves.

We had no clue what to name this little trick at the time, but it was definitely going to have "Midoriya" as the first half of the name.

Of course, as the momentary element of surprise faded (my only regret was not being able to see Bakugo's face when he first saw Full Cowling), we found ourselves being tailed by Todoroki and Bakugo; the former was doing his ice-surfing thing, a necessary method to catch up to us, while Bakugo... well, did his usual unsubtle rocket-thing, screaming profanities at everything in existence but mostly me, Izuku, and Todoroki.

As the robots came up, we briefly broke the chain to deal with the machines in our own individually flashy ways. I leapt into one, curling up into a ball and focusing the kinetic energy at the point of impact, effectively becoming a human cannonball tearing through the chest of one of the robots. Izuku just straight-up super punched a bigger one before landing next to me, then throwing me again to continue our chain. The big test of our precision with this skill would be the Fall, the area with the huge pits; one wrong leap or toss, one missed landing, and it would be over. Thankfully, we managed to do decently there, though we did have to slow down to minimize the risk, a decision which allowed Todoroki and Bakugo to catch up to us. The latter was close enough that I could have sworn I felt the heat from the flames given off by his explosions on the back my neck; even if that was some weird hallucination, he was definitely close enough for me to make out a clear sentence from him.

"YOU WORTHLESS BASTAAAAARRDS! GET BACK HEEEEERE!"

Again, what I would have given to be able to look behind us and see his expression...

* * *

Bakugo was beyond simple anger at the moment; this was more of a combination of shock, denial, and raw hatred fueled by the fires of a thousand exploding suns. Once he had accepted that Deku was a "late bloomer"—something which took him time to believe—he'd made the mistake of assuming that his quirk wouldn't be a match for him even after he got it under control, if the weakling ever did. The fake wouldn't be an issue—Bakugo was no science nerd, but he knew enough to realize that the fake's quirk wouldn't protect him from explosions—but dammit, he should have seen this coming! He'd made the mistake of assuming that the "backfiring" of Deku's quirk was just a part of it (a perfect representation of reality; the worthless brat had a worthless quirk), but all of a sudden the fake brothers had not only shot forward like a pair of bullets, they had the sheer _nerve_ to show him up! This was supposed to be _his_ moment of glory, _his_ time to shine, not theirs! As Icy-Hot gave pursuit—_that asshole, how dare he declare war on Deku and not me!_—Bakugo kicked up the intensity of his explosions, and was soon thundering past the emo, flying clear over the robots (how the hell did they get past them so quickly?) and reaching the Fall just as they began to slow down their incredibly stupid-looking trick, probably worried about accidentally dropping down those chasms like the trash they were.

As they neared the end of the Fall, Bakugo managed to pass them both, then—once he figured he had gained enough ground on them—decided to take a brief stop to land and rest his quirk for a couple of seconds before he shot off again and won the race. Looking over the wide stretch of ground in front of him, he quickly recognized what this obstacle was.

_Huh, a minefield. Not that it matters to me, I can just fly right over it; those lousy brothers can't afford to do their trick or they risk setting off—_

"IIIIINCOMIIIIIIING!"

_Shit._

Before he could get back in the air, the fake landed straight into the first section of the minefield, directly in front of him, sending a massive cloud of dust flying into the air with an equally massive "bang". It couldn't have been more than one or two mines that went off—_dammit, when the hell did they get that precise?!_—but it was evidently just enough to give the fake an extra charge while simultaneously interrupting Bakugo from following for a couple of precious seconds as the brothers cleared the rest of the minefield in one go.

So completely shocked was Bakugo that he barely noticed Icy-Hot barreling past him, using his ice to keep from setting off the bombs.

_No! Not again! I won't lose again!_

Putting everything he had into his quirk, he launched into the air and gave chase—

"AND THE FIRST PLACE WINNER IIIISSS... IZUKU MIDORIYA OF CLASS 1-A, FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY BY HIS BROTHER CASEY! AND IT LOOKS LIKE 1-A's SHOTO TODOROKI WAS JUST BEHIND THEM!"

As Bakugo soared through the finish tunnel, having the humiliation of _fucking fourth place_ of all things, he couldn't help but let out one last roar of pure rage.

_Lost... I lost again! To _them! _Why the hell do I keep losing?!_

* * *

Izuku's world practically came to a stop when he heard the announcement that he and Casey had won the race. True, it was the product of hard work and practice, and he knew they had clinched first and second place the moment they cleared the minefield... but hearing it announced to the entire stadium—no, the whole country? _That_ was what truly hit him like a freight train, the full realization that he and his brother had succeeded so completely. He couldn't help but think of his mentor's words to him, about how he needed to truly announce himself to the world.

_I did it, All Might. Did you see?_

He turned to his brother, who gave a tired thumbs-up in his direction. Before he could return the gesture, Midnight began to announce the beginning of the next round.

"It's time for the second event of the festival! Thirty-two of you have made it this far, but after this next round, only sixteen will be moving on! I hope you're ready to play~!"

Izuku sighed. Not that he was a judgmental person—and honestly, he felt somewhat hypocritical considering she had an... effect on him, just as she likely did on many of his classmates—but her behavior made him sigh in a strange mix of embarrassment and awkwardness. _Does she _have_ to make it like that...?_

"Now, gird your loins," she said, pausing for dramatic effect and unwittingly answering Izuku's internal question, "And get ready for our next event..."

As the roulette stopped, Midnight shouted out the title of the game. "RIOT BALL! Now, I'm sure you're all _shivering_ with anticipation to find out what sort of game this is... but it'll have to wait for a bit! You see, this game requires a very special sort of setup, and we'll need the field cleared of all students for a few minutes while we prepare. Don't worry, you won't have to wait long for your curiosity to be... satisfied~!"

Izuku had to admit that he was curious; thankfully, Midnight hadn't lied about a short wait, though he could hardly have expected the huge difference in the appearance of the field between going to the waiting rooms and returning. A rectangular field—somewhat reminiscent of a soccer pitch—was laid out in white lines, with strange circular objects placed around the field; several on each side, one in the dead center. Speaking of the center of the field, it was wide open except for the center of each side, which had a series of high walls and pillars; the effect basically turned the center of the field into a sort of "no man's land". The sides of the field were left mostly open, but the defensive walls had several blind corners that one could easily hide in should anyone come running up the side toward each end of the field. The goal area was unique in layout as well; each side had what looked like two soccer goals in the corners, except they were arranged vertically rather than horizontally. The goal in the middle of each side was, by contrast, very small, consisting of a simple metal hoop only slightly larger than a basketball hoop, set around ten feet above the ground and turned on its side, though actually scoring a goal in it would likely with great difficulty due to the small size and the various walls and pillars guarding it. True, one could _just barely_ spot the small goal from either side of the field, as a small alley existed... but that alley wasn't very wide, and there were a number of low walls and arches that criss-crossed it meaning one would have to be careful when approaching on foot or from the air.

"Alright, students, now pay attention—the rules for this game are rather complicated, and I won't be repeating them... even if you beg~!" Midnight licked her lips seductively before continuing, the screen above the stage giving visual aid as she spoke. "You will divide into two teams of sixteen—Red Team and Blue Team—to do battle in this arena; the makeup of the teams will be determined at random. After you have been sorted into your respective teams, you must select one team member to be a ball carrier, and two to be goal keepers. On each of the small circles, a number of round balls will appear; grab those balls and handle them well, for your task will be to score goals with them in the corner goals opposite your team's side! Every goal you score in this way counts both toward your team's overall score as well as toward your individual chances to pass on to the next round, though you will all receive a number of points based on your placement in the race; thus if your team loses, you may still be able to qualify for the tournament if you score enough goals. Those corner goals can be guarded by anyone, and scored in by anyone; block a goal attempt by another team, and you get points toward passing as well! But the true test comes in the center... for the circle there spawns a different sort of ball entirely!" As she pointed out the center circle, what looked like an American football appeared there. "Anyone can carry this ball, but only the ball carrier can score with it! To score, it must be shot through the center goal on each side; score twice in this fashion before time runs out, and your team wins! Only those designated as goal keepers are allowed to defend this particular goal; anyone caught attempting to violate that rule, or any other rule, will be... punished~!"

_Hmm... so it's a team event, but the way it's designed creates temptation to ignore teamwork and go for a free-for-all. The key here will be strategy, leadership, and proper role assignment..._

"And now, if you will cast your eyes to the screens above, I give you your teams!"

* * *

**Red team:**

_* Izuku Midoriya _

_* Katsuki Bakugo _

_* Fumikage Tokoyami _

_* Casey Midoriya_

_* Momo Yaoyorozu_

_* Juzo Honenuki_

_* Hanta Sero _

_* Tenya Iida_

_* Mei Hatsume_

_* Denki Kaminari_

_* Eijiro Kirishima_

_* Rikido Sato_

_* Ochaco Uraraka_

_* Kyoka Jiro_

_* Mina Ashido_

_* Mashirao Ojiro_

* * *

_Hmm... our team has a lot of mobility and speed,_ Izuku observed as he looked at his team's makeup;_ I don't know a couple of these names, though; I'll have to ask them what their quirks are to form a decent strategy involving them. _His eyes then glanced over to the list of Blue Team's members, and while the strengths weren't as immediately obvious, he determined that it was still likely to be an uphill battle:

* * *

**Blue team:**

_* Shoto Todoroki _

_* Ibara Shiozaki _

_* Setsuna Tokage _

_* Pony Tsunotori_

_* Togaru Kamakiri_

_* Kosei Tsuburaba_

_* Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu_

_* Kojiro Bondo_

_* Kinoko Komori_

_* Yui Kodai_

_* Neito Monoma_

_* Yosetsu Awase_

_* Itsuka Kendo_

_* Hitoshi Shinso_

_* Sen Kaibara_

_* Jurota Shishida_

* * *

Thinking carefully, Izuku began to attempt to formulate a strategy. _The only person I know on that team is Todoroki; they almost certainly know our quirks, considering most of them arrived back at the stadium after we did and probably heard about us from the USJ incident, which gives them an informational edge over us. _As the teams began to form up, he gave a closer look over his teammates; it didn't take long for him to decide on a basic strategy, though finalizing it would have to wait until after he learned what the two unknown members' quirks were.

_All right, first things first; our ball carrier and goal keepers should be..._

* * *

_**Yes, I'm mean for stopping here. Next time, you get to see the actual match!**_


	18. Play Ball!

**A/N:****_Good news: I got more music commissions! It's a full soundtrack commission, so I can expect a decent amount of work and pay from it for a while. Bad news: less time to write fanfic, so unless I get a steady stream of inspiration there might be a slowdown in terms of time between chapters. Wish me luck!_**

* * *

Inko Midoriya didn't normally watch the UA Sports Festival—aside from the occasional glance at the TV when Izuku and Casey had been watching it in the past—but now, one would have to drag her from her seat to take her eyes off of it. She was worried—any mother would be—but the thought of her babies being on TV, showing the world how wonderful they both were, achieving the dreams both of them had for so long... all of that was nearly enough to bring her to tears. But the speech her Izuku gave, followed by the overwhelming victory in the obstacle course? That had left her bawling. Her baby boys were growing up so fast; it seemed almost yesterday they had been in elementary school, just starting to get to know each other as brothers. But during the race, they worked together so well that if not for physical appearance they could've been mistaken for brothers by blood.

_Her_ baby boys. _Her _Izuku, _her_ Casey.

She wiped a tear from her eyes as she watched the replay footage of the race in motherly pride, waiting for the Riot Ball match to start. _Keep going, babies; I'm so very proud of you both._

* * *

"Alright, first things first: I need to know what all of your quirks are—"

"Hmph. Who the hell put you in charge?"

Shoto Todoroki glared at the angry-looking silver-haired Kirishima clone. "No one... yet. But if we're going to work together _at all,_ I need to know what all of you are capable of."

"'Yet'? How very cocky," a blonde replied smugly, an extremely punchable expression on his face. "But I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, considering you're from class 1-A. I bet you think you're better than the rest of us?"

Todoroki didn't stoop to giving this one even a glance. "I am. Now moving on, I need each of you to tell me your quirks, one by one..."

The blonde gave a rather bitter chuckle. "Already talking as if you're in charge of all of us. As if you ever really had to work or struggle a day in your life! I mean, one villain attack, you get rescued, then you act like you're heroes. What a bunch of delusional idiots—"

_WHACK!_

"You're the delusional one," a redhead grumbled, smacking the offending idiot on the head with a giant hand. "He may be class 1-A, but judging from his performance in the obstacle course, he's got more power than any of us combined. And he's right, we need to work as a team here."

This enraged the not!Kirishima, though Todoroki suspected it didn't take much to do that. "Yeah, sure! Let Mr. Icy-Hot take all the glory! Why the hell should we?"

_This is becoming tedious,_ Todoroki thought. "Because you all want to win."

All eyes turned to him once again, but the lack of immediate response gave him enough time to continue. "I saw the results of the obstacle course. My class all placed higher than yours, so you all have to work harder to make it to the finals; you need a win far more than the other team. As this one pointed out," he said, indicating the redheaded girl, "I'm more powerful than the rest of you, and I have the skill to match. That's not bragging, that's not boasting, that's just stating simple facts. You all hate me. I get that, and you're welcome to it. But if you want a chance to prove me wrong, if you want a chance to face me in the finals and put me in my place, as you all undoubtedly want? You're going to have to win this match first. And I'm your best bet."

Silence followed, broken only by the obnoxious blonde. "So what, now we do whatever you tell us to like it's no big deal?"

"Yes. In fact, I think I already know the perfect role for you to play, and I guarantee you'll enjoy it. Before I get to the rest of the strategy, though, I need you all to tell me your names and quirks..."

* * *

On our side of the field, planning was a little easier given that—save for two members, Juzo and Mei, who were thankfully willing to explain their quirks to everyone—we all knew each others' quirks and were used to working together (I, of course, already knew Juzo and Mei's quirks, but obviously I couldn't tell anyone else that). Not to mention, between Izuku, Momo, and myself, we would have an easy time developing an effective strategy. Izuku had most of one straight off the bat, even.

"Alright, here's my proposal," Izuku explained; "We have multiple members with quirks that lend themselves well to speed and mobility, so we ought to make use of that. I'm thinking we should go with a four-man assault team; one of them being the ball carrier, the others forming a guard of sorts. For our goalies, we use Tokoyami and Bakugo—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I objected; "What makes you think that jerk would make an effective goalie? For all we know, he'll charge off and abandon his post."

Momo nodded. "I agree; he seems like too loose a cannon for the role."

"I get your concern, but look at it this way: he's got speed and mobility, but he can't use that while carrying the ball, and he would be even less reliable as an escort for the very reason Casey just gave. Putting him in the goalie position will make use of his speed and mobility to intercept the ball, and his quick reflexes would make it easy for him to predict the trajectory of a scoring attempt. Not to mention," Izuku continued, looking over toward the other end of the field where Blue Team was no doubt strategizing, "if the other team is smart, they'll put Todoroki as their ball carrier to maximize his offensive capabilities. And given his need to prove himself, I'd bet that Todoroki would insist on that role anyway. If that happens, then Bakugo will get plenty of opportunity to face off against him, and there's no way he'd turn down that opportunity."

I was glad that Bakugo wasn't around to hear that speech; there was no telling how the hothead would take it. But I had to admit, Izuku's reasoning made sense. "Okay, fine. So what about a secondary defense? It would make sense to have a few people to focus on protecting the secondary goals, or at least intercepting people heading that way so that Tokoyami and Bakugo won't have so much pressure on them."

"I think I have a decent concept for that," Momo said confidently; "Mei has her gadgets and her zoom quirk, I can make traps, Sero's tape would be useful in creating barriers or intercepting throws, and Jiro could use the walls to ambush people heading for the secondary goals. The rest, outside of the assault team, could focus on scoring individual points."

Izuku and I nodded in agreement; Momo had a good mind for strategy.

"Alright, now it's time to decide on the assault team," Izuku said; "Tenya can be our ball carrier, while Casey and I run interference for him. Juzo's softening would normally be great for defense, but he'd also be excellent for stopping anyone pursuing the assault team."

As Izuku spoke, I found myself reflecting on everything that had lead up to this moment; after a few moments of thought, I decided to speak out.

"Bro, not to discount your strategy—it's a good one—there's something I need to say. I think... I think I ought to be the ball carrier."

Momo and Izuku blinked for a few seconds before the former chimed in. "Well, I don't know, Izuku's plan makes a lot of sense. What's your reasoning?"

"First off, Tenya is fast on the ground, but he has no air game, and the ball carrier should be as mobile as possible, especially since there are low walls in the way and it'd be difficult to hurdle them at his top speed. I got nearly the same speed as him during the quirk assessment test, and I'm a lot more resilient to boot—there really aren't any people on that team with energy-based quirks, and that's really my only weakness. I'm also a lot more mobile, considering that I can use my quirk to increase my leaping distance and height."

Both nodded, but Izuku frowned a bit. "I guess... but it sounds like you have another reason for this suggestion."

"I do," I said, looking down at my feet. "Ever since we started training to be heroes, I've done little to establish myself on my own; I've been pushing you forward, or following you, or—in the case of the USJ incident—being rescued by you. The last time I genuinely acted without you around was the battle training, and you all saw how well that went. I guess what I'm saying is... I can't keep just following behind you. I have to step out of your shadow at some point, and if things keep going the way they've always been, I'll never be able to do that."

Izuku frowned, putting his hand on my shoulder. "You shouldn't have to worry about that. We're brothers, aren't we? We should be equals."

"Exactly," I countered. "And if we're going to be equals, I need to prove I'm capable on my own merits. I know it's selfish, and your strategy is probably better overall. But... I just can't afford not to do this."

A long silence passed between the three of us, until finally Izuku broke it with a sigh. "Alright, I get it; If that's how you feel, I'm willing to go along with it. So, to recap, Bakugo and Tokoyami are our goalies, our assault team will be you as ball carrier, plus me, Iida and Juzo guarding you; Momo, Jiro, Sero, and Mei will provide secondary defense, and everyone else will focus on scoring. Now, as for how the assault team will advance, I have an idea..."

* * *

"AAAAAlrighty, sports fans, hold onto your seats, because it's time for a totally rockin' game of RIOT BALL! It looks like both teams have worked out their strategy and are ready and raring to go! What's your take on things, Snipe?"

"Well, lookin' at th' teams an' their positions, I'd say Red's got more o' th' advantage than Blue, 'least at first look. But I reckon Blue's got a few trick shots up their sleeves, n' with th' son o' th' Number Two Hero on their side, ya know they ain't goin' down easy. Key'll be keepin' a balance 'tween th' main goal n' th' secondary goals, both offense n' defense. Just from th' way each o' them's positioned, looks like both Red n' Blue've got that in mind already."

"Wow! What a detailed assessment! Let's see if it holds up as the action unfolds!"

* * *

Todoroki looked over his team; considering Red team had the speed advantage, it was a good thing most of his had good defensive quirks. With regards to his goal keepers, Shiozaki had the most suitable defensive abilities, but Tokage could cover more ground between the main goal and the secondary one on her side. With the support of Bondo's glue, Tsuburaba's ability to solidify air, Tetsutetsu's physical durability and Kendo's hands (perfect for blocking shots), he didn't foresee his side having too much difficulty defending the secondary goals; the main concern was the primary goal, especially since they'd put some of their best in what was obviously a sweep formation. If they gained possession of the ball first, he would need to act fast to take it from them; fortunately, with Tsunotori supporting him, he had just enough mobility on his side to potentially penetrate that formation quickly enough to get the ball. The rest of his team didn't have many quirks that had clear usage in offense or defense, but that just meant they had one more offensive player than Red Team.

Looking up toward the stands, he saw that his old man was watching intently. _Good,_ he thought, _let the scumbag watch. The rest of my team lacks many flashy quirks, so I'll stand out even more for it when I overwhelm Red Team with only my right side._

"BEGIN!"

At Midnight's signal, Pony launched herself into the air on her horns as Todoroki shot a wave of ice toward the center of the field, the latter charging forward as he did so in an attempt to grab the ball immediately. Unfortunately, the speed with which Red Team's vanguard moved—Iida in front, Izuku and Juzo on the Right and Left flanks respectively, Casey in back—allowed them to just barely reach the ball in time.

_Smart move, choosing Iida as the ball carrier,_ Todoroki observed as he sent a wall of ice shooting directly in Iida's path, _but even he can't turn on a dime._

As the spectacled teen attempted to turn—necessarily slowing down as he did so—Todoroki closed in, hand inches from the ball...

"Thirty-one! Twenty-four!"

Iida shouted and immediately tossed the ball directly behind him toward Casey, who cannonballed his way through the ice wall much the same as he did the robots in the obstacle course. Before Todoroki could change course, Izuku shot in between him and Casey's left flank as Juzo moved up to Casey's right, with Tenya now bringing up the rear. Pony had just landed to their right flank, only to sink into the ground thanks to Juzo's quirk.

_Signals for passing and shifting positions, hiding the identity of the ball carrier—Iida was in the lead position, so I assumed it was him—while allowing people to shift around as necessary based on defensive and offensive needs. Got to hand it to you, Izuku Midoriya, your strategic skill is impressive..._

Swinging around via ice surfing, Todoroki gave chase; his quarry was ready for that, however, as Casey shouted another signal.

"Fourteen! Thirty-one!"

At that, Casey passed the ball to Juzo, who took the lead position and dove into the ground with the ball, swimming through the earth as easily as water; suddenly, Casey was in back, blocking Todoroki's advance, while Iida moved into the right.

_Dammit, they're getting close to the goal and I don't know which one to go after! Even if I did, they'll keep switching until they get close enough to score..._

Shiozaki and Tokage were quick to intercept, the former sending her vines through the ground to force Juzo to surface, only for him to shout a passing pattern.

"Forty-one! Twenty-four!"

With a pass to Casey, Juzo took the left flank again with Izuku at the back, allowing Casey to leap over the vines and simply drop the ball through the hoop to score; a green light appeared over the goal hoop, indicating one successful score, and if that weren't enough of an indicator the bell-like sound gave it away on its own. Looking back to the center of the field, Todoroki could see another football appear, and immediately he set off towards it.

_Obviously, the shouts are based on numbers assigned to each of the four people in their little vanguard, _Todoroki thought as he sent waves of ice behind him to slow down the returning attack team._ Now that they've scored, I know that Casey Midoriya is the ball carrier; that must mean he represents "one". The numbers are paired up; if my guess is correct, the first pair determines who the leader switches with, while the second pair tells how the others shift around..._

In any event, he could worry about that another time, as he managed to grab the football before Red Team could return to the center of the field.

* * *

Elsewhere on the field, the Red Team found more success. Sero grinned at the irony of catching the insect-like Kamakiri in a tape trap, Jiro managed to nearly blow out Shishida and Kinoko's eardrums with a surprise sonic blast, Yaoyorozu's glue net snagged Awase, and what few balls managed to get through were quickly deflected by Bakugo and Tokoyami. Their secondary offense, too, had its share of fortune; Kaminari, though momentarily stuck in Bondo's glue, was freed by Ashido's acid quickly enough to score, followed quickly by Hatsume; While Sato and Ojiro were unable to successfully get past Shiozaki's defenses, Kirishima's attempt just managed to get through before he found Tetsutetsu in his face.

All in all, things seemed to be going rather well for Red Team. Unfortunately, that was when Todoroki's plan went into action.

As Todoroki neared the goal, all of Blue Team's secondary attackers regrouped and headed for Tokoyami's side with more balls. Well, all save two.

Before Bakugo could notice Todoroki's advance, a smug voice called out to him. "Oh, look, it's that grouchy mad bomber from the obstacle race!"

"What the hell did you call me?"

Looking for the offender, Bakugo spotted Neito, who charged in his direction with a ball in hand. "I'm not impressed, honestly. I remember seeing you on the news once... helpless in the clutches of some slime villain! How pitiful!"

"THAT'S IT! Say your prayers, you worthless maggot!"

He charged off at the smug blonde before noticing Tokoyami struggling out of the corner of his eye... just as Todoroki rushed toward the goal, football in hand. "Rrgh! You stupid, dirty..."

"Hey, dumbass. Look over here."

As Bakugo neared the goal, about to intercept, he spared only a derisive chuckle. "Like that's gonna work on me a second time—"

_**It just did... dumbass.**_

Dropping out of the air and somehow managing to land on his feet, Bakugo found himself struggling to think, his mind lost in a haze.

_What...? Who..._

_**Do me a favor and move as far away from the goal area as you can.**_

Unable to resist, Bakugo obediently abandoned his post and marched slowly toward the center of the field, oblivious to the bell, the score indicator, or his teammates' shock at the sudden turn of events.

* * *

_**Next chapter finishes the Riot Ball match, gives some breather moments, and then it's off to the tournament. Read and review!**_


	19. Trench Run

**A/N:****_I now have three(!) music commissions going on at once, so I'm pretty swamped at the moment and the speed of my updates might slip further. Hopefully the quality makes up for the wait..._**

* * *

"Hmm, Icy-Hot was right. I _did_ enjoy that!" Neito chuckled at the sight of Bakugo obediently walking toward the center of the field like a servant at the behest of his master. _At least now he's acting his place,_ the blonde thought as he casually scored, Shinso following up with a score of his own. The rest of Blue Team was having similar success, having scored a number of times on Tokoyami, and what few Red Team members managed to exploit their lack of secondary defense were prevented from scoring by the efforts of Shiozaki and Tokage, the former in particular performing magnificently as a goalie.

"Just like 1-A to drop the ball so easily... even if we can't score again, we've almost gotten enough individual scores to tie the game, so once we do that we'd only have to get the ball and play keep away until time ran out to win."

As Neito grabbed another ball and scored once more, he couldn't help but keep smiling. _You're next, Todoroki. Once we've dealt with 1-A, I'll show you just how little your name really matters in the tournament!_

So caught up was he in reverie that he failed to notice Kirishima slapping Bakugo out of his trance until the sound of explosions a few feet away from him alerted him to impending danger.

"You don't know when to quit, do you?"

"YOU BASTARD! I'LL K—"

To Neito's surprise, Bakugo's attack cut off at the last second along with the last word in that sentence; he could've sworn it sounded like Bakugo's voice had cracked a little on whatever he had been about to say, and for almost a full second the explosive teenager was frozen in mid-attack. Which was plenty of time for a counterattack by way of an arm drag, followed by a copied explosion to the face.

"Heh, what's wrong? Lost your nerve? How pathetic... in any case, it seems your team has the football back, so I suppose I'll return to my side of the field for a bit. Why don't you lie there for a while and wait for me to get back and score on you again, hmm?"

Neito didn't bother to spare even a glance at his opponent, who was far too stunned—physically and emotionally—to immediately follow him.

* * *

_I knew it, I just _knew_ Bakugo would screw it up,_ I thought as we raced toward the Blue goal again; there wasn't much room for more error on our team's part either, considering the fact that half of Blue Team was on our tail. _We need Juzo in back again, that's where most of them are. Iida can go up front while Izuku and I cover for him... we got this!_

"Forty-three, Twenty-one—"

"Gotcha."

Just as Juzo passed the ball to Iida, Todoroki surfed down right next to the latter, his hand less than an inch from intercepting the pass. I only just managed to get the ball back by a hair's breadth as Todoroki smirked at Izuku, still on our tail.

"Casey is one, you're two, Iida is three, and Honenuki is four. Clever idea, Izuku Midoriya."

"That calling pattern was _my_ idea, jackass," I said, gritting my teeth. My frustration was just as much the fact that Todoroki automatically assumed Izuku was the one who thought of those numbers (he had the idea of passing the ball between us, but the system of how we called it out was all me) as it was about the plan being found out.

_Dammit, I knew he was smart enough, but I didn't expect him to figure it out so fast! _

Wheeling around as one, our four-man assault team tried to evade the freezing attack, only for an ice wall to pop up in front of us; quickly handing Juzo the ball so that he could swim through the ground under the ice, I prepared to cannonball through the wall, only to hear a shout of pain as Juzo came back up from the ground on our side again.

"He froze the ground on the other side! I can't soften two surfaces at once!"

We attempted to run in a different direction, only for yet another ice wall to block us, then another from a different direction; soon, we found ourselves completely surrounded, and with Pony and Todoroki approaching fast with the rest of their team, it would take a miracle to keep the ball...

_BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!_

"Time's up! Everyone stop where you are!"

A horn blared and Midnight shouted over the PA system just as Todoroki's hand was about to grab the ball once again._  
_

"Hmm... it seems we have a tie," Midnight said, gesturing to the secondary goal scoreboard and the lights above the primary goals. "UNACCEPTABLE! There can only be one victorious team... so now, we'll have to have overtime~!"

Juzo blinked at the announcement as Todoroki began to grudgingly melt the ice that he had surrounded us with. "Overtime? Huh, lucky break for us..."

"That would depend on the rules," Iida responded as he waited for Midnight to continue.

"Both teams will have exactly five minutes to confer, after which the match will resume with only three minutes on the clock! If no one scores with the football before that time is up, whichever team has the most individual scores wins! If one team manages to score with the football before time is up, however, that team will still win no matter what! If a tie is still found, the match will be decided by the last person to score a secondary goal. Is that clear? I hope so, because I don't intend to repeat myself! With that, off you all go to plan your strategy!"

With that, we returned to our respective sides of the field to plan.

"It's obvious now that there's no way we can just keep the same passing-and-shifting strategy we started out with," Momo said with a sigh. "But at the same time, Todoroki's ability to react and respond to our assault team's movements is frankly ridiculous, and we can't afford to not have some form of escort. Not if we want to win."

Izuku nodded. "Yeah, it's not like we have any other option here, at least none that I can think of right offhand. We'll just have to throw out the calling pattern and rely on hand signals or something, or create a new one."

"Not good enough," I countered with a shake of my head. "Todoroki managed to see through our code way faster than I thought he would, and now that he has an idea of how we think he'll probably have an even easier time figuring it out even if we change it up. Codes have to make sense, after all..."

_Wait. Maybe that's it._

An idea flashed through my head, blossomed into a number of other ideas, which then split off into even more; as quickly as they came to me, I did what I could to whittle them down in my head to the best ones...

"You look like you have something in mind, Bro," Izuku said. "What is it?"

"Well... I'm not one hundred percent sure about this plan, but I think it's our best bet. We don't just need a new calling system, we need a new method of advancing toward the goal. More than any of that, though, we need a way to get around Todoroki's skill at analyzing us."

As both Izuku and Momo nodded, I looked over the rest of our team. "Momo, I'll need you to make a few things. The rules don't say anything against it, but I guarantee that no one on the other team is going to have thought of this, either. Before we get to that, though, there's one major change I'd like to make to the assault team..."

* * *

"AAAAANNND we're back, sports fans, for the conclusion of this TOTALLY EPIC game of riot ball! For those watching at home, I hope whatever commercials you just saw were relaxing, because from the looks of things we're about to see a real nail-biter of a conclusion! What's your read on the situation, Snipe?"

"Ah think it's obvious, Mic. Both teams're goin' f'r broke here, puttin' th' best they got on th' front n' center. This oughtta be one heckuva finish, ah reckon."

"It seems my cowboy cosplayer cohost agrees with me!"

"C-cosplayer? Mic, Ah think—"

"WHAT COULD HAPPEN WITH SO MUCH ROCKIN' POWER ASSEMBLED? Who's gonna come away victorious? I can't wait!"

* * *

Shoto observed his team's formation as they waited for overtime to start; everyone but the goalkeepers were lined up, the most powerful quirk users in the middle with him to protect against the inevitable push. Looking over to the other side of the field, he could see that their formation was similarly focused; the very front was spearheaded by the vanguard, with Izuku Midoriya in the lead; his brother stood immediately to his left next to Kirishima, with Juzo to the right and Sato close by the latter. Iida stood directly behind Izuku, and the rest of their team save their goalies were spread out on the flanks. From the looks of things, it was obvious what was going to happen the moment overtime began. It would be a short, brutal push on both sides, an all-or-nothing charge for the ball before attempting to smash through the other side's defenses in a mad rush for the goal.

_Perfect._ He gazed up into the stands to meet his father's gaze. _You just keep watching, old man,_ he said in his mind;_ I see you scowling already. It must burn you that I've come this far without your fire... and I'll win this match the same way, for all the world to see._

"BEGIN!"

At Midnight's signal, both sides charged for the center, Todoroki riding a wave of ice toward the football... only to have it taken by Izuku Midoriya almost immediately. Puzzlingly, his green-haired rival dropped back with the ball and ducked down as Kirishima stood in the way. _You're going to hand it off to someone else while using Kirishima to blind us from seeing who. I know it. And the person you're going to hand it off to is..._

"RECIPRO BURST!"

_THERE! Iida!_

His eyes having been drawn to Iida before the latter even made a move, Todoroki was more than prepared for the teen's sudden advance. With a wave of his hand, Todoroki created an ice slide under Iida's feet, causing him to trip and drop the ball, which slid right into his waiting hands.

"Nice try, but you picked the wrong plan."

"And _you_ picked the wrong ball."

The words came from Juzo, who barreled past... holding the football. _Wait, what did I—_

Shoto looked down at the ball in his hands; it had the same shape as the football, but there were enough slight differences to notice that it was nothing more than a fake. _Yaoyorozu made a decoy ball... once again, clever._

Wheeling around to give chase, Todoroki spotted another surprise; Iida had rejoined the four-man team, and all three of the others were carrying footballs. The rest of Red Team was charging behind them, supporting and protecting the vanguard's rear as best they could. _A shell game? This complicates things. I can't just surround them all with ice like this; I have to figure out where the real ball is!_

Grunting in frustration, Todoroki kept watch for any clue that would give away the location of the real ball as he gave chase...

* * *

The plan was working; Todoroki had fallen for the first layer of our ruse, though whether or not he'd see through the rest was still an unknown. The push wasn't easy considering that virtually all of Blue Team was in our way—save for Neito, who took advantage of our all-out assault to score a secondary goal—but none of that mattered so long as we kept our momentum up. As Kamakiri and Shishida moved to intercept, I shouted a passing pattern.

"Forty-one! Thirty-four!"

Sure enough, Tsunotori dropped down from the air in between Juzo and me, ready to intercept.

_Exactly as planned._ I managed to just get a glimpse of her surprised expression as Juzo passed his ball to Iida instead of me, while I switched places with Juzo, handing my football to him as we passed each other. Shishida found himself tackled by Sato, Tsunotori was tripped up by Sero's tape, and Kamakiri found his legs sinking into the ground as Juzo passed by him. The entirety of our team was in on this one push. As Todoroki started to catch up, I noticed that we had only slightly under a minute left; I shouted again.

"Thirteen! Forty-two!"

Iida passed the ball to me as Izuku switched places with Juzo. Izuku traded his ball with Juzo's as they passed. And Todoroki noticed. With a sudden surfing move, he swung up to Izuku and managed to get the ball from him... only to fall for the next layer of our trap.

See, the thing about shell games is that the whole game itself is a con. You look at the shells, trying to catch when the ball is switched between the shells. And in Todoroki's case, his fixation on my brother meant that he would most likely notice any "secret" movement he made. But the ball was never under any of the shells to begin with. The ball was in the conman's sleeve the entire time.

In this case, that was the cue for the _fifth_ member of our vanguard to make her appearance as Uraraka tossed her football to me. _Twenty seconds left._ I used my quirk to shove forward just as Uraraka touched me to make me float, the result being that I flew in a high arc over all the walls toward the goal. _Fifteen seconds left. _Tokage and Shiozaki were quick to intercept, the former sending body parts toward me from all directions as the latter formed a roof of vines over the goal. _Ten seconds left._

But I wasn't going for the goal just yet. _Five seconds left. _I threw the ball down to the _sixth_ member of our vanguard who had moved forward while everyone was watching me. With a bright flash and a crackle, Kaminari sent waves of electricity surging in a wide radius as everyone else in our vanguard dropped back out of his radius, the result being a very thoroughly stunned green-haired girl involuntarily dropping her vines as Uraraka released me. _Two seconds left._ I landed almost immediately in front of Kaminari, grabbed the ball, and threw it.

The buzzer sounded just half a second after the football passed through the goal.

* * *

"WHOOOOOAAAA! That was one heck of a game, eh Snipe?"

"See, this ain't cosplay, it's a theme like ev'ry other hero out there, cosplay's somthin' diff'rent—"

"No time for that, it looks like the numbers are already in! PREEEEESENTIIING, YOUR FINALISTS!"

* Izuku Midoriya

* Katsuki Bakugo

* Fumikage Tokoyami

* Casey Midoriya

* Momo Yaoyorozu

* Neito Monoma

* Juzo Honenuki

* Tenya Iida

* Mei Hatsume

* Denki Kaminari

* Eijiro Kirishima

* Hitoshi Shinso

* Ochaco Uraraka

* Shoto Todoroki

* Ibara Shiozaki

* Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu

"What a lineup! I bet you all can't wait for the final tournament to begin, huh? WELL YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL AFTER THESE MESSAGES!"

* * *

_**As always, read and review!**_


	20. Rebuttal

**A/N:** **_Sorry for the wait, everyone! Thanks a billion to Huynher for his excellent ideas and beta-ing skills! Enjoy the newest chapter!_**

* * *

"AAAAAAAAAaaaaand We're BACK, sports fans! Wow, that was a lot of commercials... but for those of you NOT calling to order your Bonco Rotisserie, IT'S TIME FOR ROUND ONE OF THE FINAL PART OF OUR SPORTS FESTIVAL TO BEGIIIIIIN! Now, let's meet the contestants who'll kick off this first rockin' round!"

The crowd cheered wildly and Snipe leaned slightly away while covering his ears as Present Mic delivered his patented style of commentary.

"First up, he's one half of a pair that's been putting on quite the epic show today, and now we get to see if he can shine on his own! From Class 1-A, CASEY MIDORIYAAAAAAA!"

Loud cheers followed once again as the boy in question approached the center of the ring, waving to the crowd and smiling as he did so.

"VERSUS! A boy who flew a bit under the radar during the race, but who made a great showing in the Riot Ball match and looks more than ready to step into the limelight! From Class 1-B, NEITO MONOMAAAAAAA!"

The blonde in question practically swaggered into the ring, an extremely confident smirk on his face. The two faced each other and began speaking, though whatever they were saying was inaudible to all but them. _Man, _thought Mic as he observed the exchange from the announcer's box,_ we really ought to get microphones down there so I can hear what they're saying..._

* * *

The most obnoxious member of Class 1-B stood in front of me with that insanely punchable expression on his face. "Hmph. Even the announcer hypes you up more than me," Neito observed with a pointed look toward the announcer's box before turning back to look me in the eye. "Of course, it makes sense, given the fact that he's your homeroom teacher now."

I said nothing in response. This guy may not have been Shinso, but responding to his obvious bait wasn't a mistake I planned to make regardless. It also seemed to irritate him more, as evidenced by his slowly shifting expression as he continued trying to taunt me.

"What's the matter, Midoriya? Nervous now that you have to fight without your brother to help you out?"

That one nearly got under my skin, but I managed to keep a lid on it as he tried one more time to bait me.

"You 1-A fools think you're all so much better than us. Well, now it's time to put you in your place and show who _really_ deserves the recognition that was handed to you by the media!"

I finally responded with a feigned look of surprise. "Oh, I'm sorry, were you saying something?"

Neito growled and charged, hand out in a clear attempt to touch me and copy my quirk. I sidestepped him fairly easily, keeping my hands in my pockets to further aggravate him. Izuku and I had done quite a bit of sparring in preparation for the Sports Festival, and I became very good at dodging. Neito simply wasn't anywhere near the level of skill he thought he was, and it was showing. After a few more successful dodges, I kicked him in the gut—minus any kinetic energy boost—sending him reeling back onto his butt.

"'Put me in my place', Monoma? You obviously have no clue how I got this 'place' or what it really takes."

"I know full well how you got it," the blonde replied; "YOU WERE HANDED IT! You survive one villain attack and the media start treating you like you're already heroes! Meanwhile, people with quirks every bit as good as yours get pushed to the side! You may have an impressive quirk, Midoriya, but without that you're nothing... and I'll prove it right now!"

This time, Neito was able to touch me and copy my quirk. Which, incidentally, I allowed to happen because this jerk needed a lesson in humility.

"Heheh... I already figured out your little quirk from watching you! You absorb kinetic energy from impact, and build it up by running around! I'll just do the same and launch you out of the ring!"

Neito made a big leap, clearly planning to use it as the starting point for a number of them... but after only two such leaps, he stopped, clearly approaching the limit of kinetic energy storage. "What? But... why can't I build up more?"

"Because I _wasn't_ handed this. Unlike you, I don't rely on my power to the exception of everything else. You may be clever enough to form strategies and analyze other quirks, but you completely overlook one key weakness of your own."

I ran over to Neito and delivered a couple of unpowered punches to fill him up a little more. "You copy the quirk itself, but you can't copy training and physical conditioning. Around a year ago I could only take exactly one fastball's worth of kinetic energy before I couldn't take any more, something that basically made the quirk useless in a real fight." I hit him a couple of more times. "I had to train constantly, working my butt off to near-collapse and more, going above and beyond my ordinary limits just to get to my current level. You've obviously had basic fitness and hand-to-hand training, but not much beyond that. As for the USJ thing..."

This time, I decked the bastard, which set him all the way to full. "We got the media treatment because we had real villains trying to kill us. Real, actual threats that we nearly died from. And by the way, our first homeroom teacher, the one this entire festival is in memory to? He actually _did _die, right in front of us. Bringing that whole incident up... _was a mistake."_

I grabbed his arm and pulled him into an arm drag, slamming him down onto the arena floor and causing minor "overflow" damage in the process. "With an attitude like yours... you'll _never _beat us. So until you start working to earn a place like ours, or go through the same crap we went through to get here? _Shut up."_

I punctuated that last remark with a slap to his face, which added just enough overflow damage to put him down for the count.

* * *

Up in the stands, Kaminari winced in sympathetic pain at the result of the match. "Oof! Talk about a curb-stomp..."

"Serves the bastard right," Bakugo replied with a snarl. "That arrogant little prick didn't know who he was messing with. His copy quirk is annoying as hell, but if the other guy has a quirk that only got good through training, copying it is useless."

Part of Bakugo hated complimenting either of the Midoriya brothers, even indirectly and backhandedly, but his humiliation at the hands of Neito during the Riot Ball match was just fresh enough to tip the balance in favor of the Fake. Just this once.

"It's a good thing we all trained hard for the festival, then," Iida observed. "I get the distinct feeling that the rest of Class 1-B weren't nearly as lazy."

Tokoyami nodded. "We let our guard down at our own risk."

"Well, this next match ought to be interesting."

All eyes turned to see Casey approaching from the stairwell and sitting down next to Kaminari. The latter raised an eyebrow in response. "So who _is_ next?"

The voice of Present Mic provided an immediate answer. **"Now entering the ring, a girl whose tricks and traps made short work of Blue Team's secondary offense during the Riot Ball match! Representing Class 1-A, MOMO YAOYOROZU! Her opponent also managed to make an impression during the same match with her own gadgets and gizmos; from the support course, MEI HATSUME!"**

* * *

_Dammit, how does she fit all of these things into one backpack?!_

Momo growled in frustration as a shot from a small catapult was deflected by a round shield that unfolded from a mechanical spider-like limb protruding from said backpack.

"As you can see, the Automated Defense Reflex system installed into the Extendo-Legs reacts instantaneously to any threat!"

The gadgeteer genius gestured toward Momo, who had just enough time to bring up her own small shield to defend against a small rubber bullet fired back from another leg.

"Every limb in the Extendo-Legs contains both a small shield AND a miniature gun that can accommodate and fire any small-caliber projectile! Isn't it glorious?"

_This is getting ridiculous, _Momo thought, _She's turning this whole match into one big commercial!_

Thinking quickly, Momo used her quirk to create a face mask and a few smoke grenades. She tossed them on the ground in front of her, concealing her from view as she prepared to make a couple more things. _I'll be spent after this. Hopefully it'll pay off... _

"If the villain you're fighting tries to conceal themselves in smoke, never fear! My patented Visual Enhancement goggles can see through any smoke with perfect clarity!"

A large net fired out and covered its target before tightening. The smoke cleared... to reveal that the net had only covered a lifelike statue of Momo. At that moment, an equally impressive net fell from the sky onto Mei and similarly shrunk to capture as Momo landed, her own hastily-made replicas of the former's metallic limbs retracting. With that finished, Momo collapsed to her knees, exhausted.

"Whew... I w-won—"

Before she could even complete the sentence, Momo's net fell to pieces as a number of blades emerged from Mei's Extendo-Legs. "Last but not least, the Extendo-Legs come with automatic wire-cutters to free you from any trap or net your opponent can send your way!"

Momo's heart fell as quickly as her smile. She was too winded to make anything else, and even standing would be a genuine struggle...

And then the hyperactive gadget girl simply stepped out of the ring, throwing her hands in the air. "And that concludes my presentation! All of these gadgets and more, invented by yours truly, Mei Hatsume! REMEMBER THE NAME!"

Stunned silence had never been so loud.

* * *

The next two fights went by fairly quickly. First off, Kaminari took on Tokoyami; the latter was at a disadvantage, but he put on a decent showing before the former cut loose and unleashed the full power of his quirk on Tokoyami. Surprisingly, aside from the loss of Dark Shadow and falling out-of-bounds, Tokoyami left the arena mostly intact. Kaminari, on the other hand, had to be carried out because the victorious moron was, for the time being, too dumb to be guided out of the ring on his own. After that came Kirishima vs. Tetsutetsu, which went exactly the same as it did in canon when they simultaneously knocked each other out cold; whether the outcome of their tiebreaker would be different would have to wait, because after them came Izuku's first matchup against his canon opponent, Shinso.

Truth be told, I was a bit worried for Izuku. I made sure to tell him not to get riled up by the guy, and I didn't even have to tell him about his powers because everyone had seen plain as day in the Riot Ball match what those powers were. And even if Izuku did screw up, I knew that, in canon at least, he was saved from losing by the spirits of the previous wielders of One for All. In spite of all this, I couldn't help but ask to watch from the entrance as he battled. As a matter of fact, it would prove to be a camping spot of sorts for both of us throughout almost all of our matches in the festival.

As I descended the stairs toward the entrance ramp where Izuku was waiting, I passed Momo in the halls, looking a bit down.

"Hey, YaoMomo. What's wrong?"

She perked up in surprise at my voice. "Casey-kun? Oh, uh, just... thinking, that's all. No need to worry."

"Hey, if something is wrong, you can tell me. I won't say anything to anyone," I said, sensing something was definitely wrong. "And call me Keikkun if you like. Everyone aside from Izuku seems to have picked up on that anyway."

Momo opened her mouth as if to insist she was perfectly okay before sighing. "Well, it's just the way I won. I threw everything at that girl and got nowhere, and the only reason I'm moving on at all is because she forfeited. I dislike being handed things..." She turned her head away, almost in shame.

_I might have guessed that was the problem,_ I mused before responding. "Hey, you yourself just said you threw everything you had at her. That last strategy you pulled off... it was brilliant. I mean, from just brief observation in the middle of a fight, you managed to replicate not one, but_ two_ of her gadgets with your quirk, _and_ make a statue of yourself convincing enough to fool those super-advanced-looking goggles of hers."

"It wasn't enough. It still failed in the end."

I shook my head at her. "That's not the point. I mean, sure, she had an answer to that, but the fact that you were able to come up with that strategy and make all of that stuff on the fly must have definitely made an impression. As far as I'm concerned, you _deserve_ to move on."

She looked up at me and blinked a couple of times as she processed what I was saying. "Really? You think so?"

"Definitely," I nodded. "the pros in the audience would have to be morons not to be interested in you after that performance."

That seemed to brighten her up a little bit. "I see your point. Thank you, Cas—er, Keikkun."

"No problem, Yao—"

**"Ladies and gentlemen, it's almost time for the fifth match of the tournament to begin! From the General Studies course..."**

The voice of Present Mic interrupted us; turning to run down the stairs, I gave her a smile and a wave. "Whoops, I just realized I was going to cheer Izuku on from the entry hall. See you later!"

I made it down the last flight of stairs just in time for the introductions to end and see Izuku step into the ring. _Come on, bro, you got this..._

* * *

"So, on top of getting the best score in the entrance exams, you won the race and the riot ball match. You must think pretty highly of yourself, huh?"

Izuku stared down Shinso as he waited for the signal to begin the match, but remained silent, remembering Casey's warning about his quirk. Something about the condescension dripping from the purple-haired boy's voice got on his nerves, though.

"Personally, I think you just got lucky. I had to deal with a system rigged against my powers and people who kept acting like I was destined to be a villain because of them, while _your_ quirk just happened to be perfectly suited for everything you've faced so far and looks flashy enough to make people like you. It's not like you're really any more talented than anyone else... truth be told, you and your brother aren't really all that special when you get right down to it. You both were too weak to win alone, so you had to leech off each other to get ahead..."

**"BEGIIIIIIIIN!"**

"...how pathetic—"

In a flash, Izuku was in Shinso's face, shoving him out of the ring. The match didn't even last half a minute before Shinso was lying on the grass, glaring up at Izuku.

"I get it," Izuku said, not allowing Shinso the opportunity to speak first. "You think you're the only one who got mocked? Before my quirk showed up, I was constantly called worthless. I heard the exact same things you just said about me over and over again. But I never gave up, because in spite of everything that people said about me I knew I _wasn't_ worthless. You want to be a hero; I can tell that right away. And I know for a fact that you'd be great at it! Your power could be insanely useful for hero work! You could end hostage crises without any violence at all, get villains to turn themselves in voluntarily, rescue people in disasters who are too frightened to get out of the way of danger themselves! So what if people don't understand that? You showed how useful you could be in the riot ball match, and I'm betting a number of pros saw that too. And if they didn't, you can just use that as motivation to get stronger for next year and find ways to overcome your weaknesses rather than just feel sorry for yourself or obsess over other people's opinions. If you focus on what they think about you, you'll never get anywhere."

Shinso looked at him in surprise before sighing as the words sank in. Izuku could only hope that his speech somehow took root as he turned to leave.

* * *

_**As always, read and review!**_


	21. Hidden Scars

After Izuku beat Shinso, it was time for Todoroki's first match. Juzo managed to last a couple of seconds longer than Sero did in canon, but in the end our Icy-Hot classmate flattened him all the same. A brief recess was called to clean up the ice and fix the ring—Todoroki really did a number on it—at which point we decided to use the break to check out the stands outside the arena. On our way there, though, we were stopped by a deep booming voice from around a corner in the hallway.

"Shoto, this disobedience has gone on long enough."

Sidling up against a wall, Izuku and I poked our heads around to see none other than Endeavor with his back to us, staring down the younger Todoroki.

Izuku starts to whisper to me. "What's going—"

"Shh," I said, cutting him off. This was too important a conversation to miss.

Our classmate glared up at his father, but was otherwise silent for the moment as Endeavor continued.

"You have a duty, Shoto! As my creation, you have the duty to surpass All Might in my stead!"

" 'In your name', you mean," Shoto growled back. "I told you, I don't give a damn about what _you_ want. If you want to beat All Might, do it yourself. I'll win without your power."

As Shoto turned to leave, Endeavor stomped after him and put a hand on his shoulder, turning him back around to face him. "And just what makes you think you have any choice in the matter, boy?"

"I know your secrets, _father. _You're the one without a choice in the matter. You either watch me surpass you without your quirk in front of the entire country from the stands... or you can do it from—"

_SMACK!_

A backhand from Endeavor crossed Todoroki's face, but the latter didn't so much as flinch. His expression remained fixed in rage at the father. A silence fell over everything, and after a couple of minutes Endeavor broke the standoff by stomping away himself, still unaware of our presence.

"This discussion is not over, Shoto. You _will_ do your duty."

I looked on in mild confusion. _What secrets was Todoroki talking about? What does he have on Endeavor?_ Before Izuku and I could ruminate on it more, Todoroki turned in our direction. "Come out, whoever you are. I know you're there."

As we stepped out from our hiding place, Shoto grunted in annoyance. "Hmph. Of _course_ it'd be you two..."

"Todoroki... what was that all about?" Izuku asked, concern on his face.

"It's none of your business. Forget everything you heard—"

"You're our classmate and our friend, Todoroki," I interrupted, "That makes it our business!"

Shoto fixed me with an icy glare. "No, it doesn't. You're the competition. Both of you, the competition..." A pause came over him as he turned to look at Izuku. "But you, Izuku Midoriya, are a special case. I'd like to talk to you in private—"

"Whatever you have to say to me, you can say to my brother," Izuku said firmly. "I don't know why you're so obsessed with me, but don't act as if he isn't here!"

Todoroki began to protest, but then sighed. "Fine. You want my story? I'll tell you my story..."

Hearing Todoroki's backstory in the anime was one thing. Having him tell it to me personally was something else entirely. I already hated Endeavor before coming to this universe; being told the sheer extent of his cruelty in person only amplified that. _To think that such a scumbag could be legally called a "hero"..._

"...And that's why I can't lose to you, Izuku Midoriya," Todoroki said as he finished his exposition; "I won't allow that bastard even the slightest satisfaction. I'll surpass him and you without ever using his quirk."

A sympathetic pause came over us. I sensed that Izuku was about to give the same response that he did in canon, and was about to let him when I recalled something we had overheard before, a question that still needed answering.

"What exactly do you have on your father?"

Shoto turned to look at me with an icy stare. "It doesn't matter."

"And why not? If he's as bad as you say, why waste anything you can use against him?"

Shoto seemed to think about that for a minute before shaking his head and turning away from us. "Because there's no real point. It's enough of a threat to him to make him squirm, but not to really cause him harm. He's the number two hero, and he's one of the wealthiest in the world. He's got connections all over the place. Who do you think people will listen to? Besides... I don't just want him punished. I want to humiliate him so badly that all his success and popularity will taste bitter. I want him to live a long time, knowing how irrelevant he really is compared to me."

The sheer level of hate coming off of Todoroki was palpable; as he spoke that last part, he shook a little and clenched his fists so hard I thought they might bleed. If he hadn't had his back turned, I'm sure we would have seen his teeth grinding as well. So much hate, and all of it completely justified. But at the same time, Endeavor was a major problem for the hero community, particularly with the League of Villains looking for any sort of weakness to exploit in the hopes of disrupting the peace by eroding public trust. Whatever dirt Todoroki had, it would easily provide ammunition for the League, unless it came out in a controlled fashion. Even so, it was obvious that trying to get Todoroki to volunteer that information or cooperate in bringing it to public light would be futile until he could be reached through all that hate... and there was only one person I knew who could do that. Thankfully, that person decided to comment at last.

"Todoroki... I can't remotely pretend to be able to feel your pain. You've had it so much worse than anyone I've met... but you're not alone. And you don't have to be. If you want to surpass your dad, though, you'll need to give it everything you have and not hold back. Because when I reach you in the finals—and trust me, I will—I won't hold back, either."

Our icy-hot classmate seemed to ponder Izuku's words for a few more moments before walking off in silence. Neither of us followed him; it was obvious he needed space. Besides, enough time had almost certainly passed for the arena to have been cleaned up for the next match...

* * *

Bakugo sneered a bit as the green bitch stared at him with a weird look on her face. "What the hell are you looking at me like that for?"

"Apologies," Ibara replied, "You simply look troubled."

"You calling me scared?!"

She shook her head. "I didn't say that. I merely thought you seemed to be troubled. Your face... you're trying so hard to be frightening, but you're hurting inside, aren't you?"

"**BEGIIIIIIIIN!"**

Bakugo roared and rocketed toward her. "SHUT UP!_You're_ gonna be hurting _all over _when I'm done with you!"

As wall of vines shot up to block his attack, he heard an infuriating sigh from his opponent behind it. "You poor thing..."

"Don't mock me!" Bakugo snarled back. "I'll make you pay for that!"

Another vine wall blocked his path. "I would never mock one in need of salvation!"

"I said _shut up!"_ Gritting his teeth in fury, Bakugo used his quirk to boost around a new wall just fast enough to get in Ibara's face. "Now I got you! Di—"

He froze, his voice catching in his throat. Before he could recover, a huge mass of vines erupted from the ground and lunged at him; he barely managed to get out of the way before they could trap him. He couldn't believe it; for the first time in his entire life, he was on the _defensive._ By sheer luck, he was able to find an opening long enough to try again, lunging at her. "D—"

He froze again. To make matters worse, this time he actually felt moisture in his eyes. _What the hell is wrong with me? Why the hell can't I say it?!_

This time, he was unable to dodge before Ibara's vines tangled him up from the neck down, trapping his arms against his sides. As he struggled and thrashed about, trying to escape, the infuriating girl frowned at him. "Oh my... you poor dear. You truly are a soul in pain, aren't you? What is it that ails you?"

Bakugo finally recognized what was so enraging about her expression: she wasn't mocking him. She was _pitying_ him.

"RRRRAAAAAAGGH!"

Unleashing a massive explosion that practically incinerated the mass of vines around him, Bakugo charged at her once again, this time with the power of pure rage fueling him. "SHUT UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!"

Ibara threw up vine walls left and right, trying her best to keep him at bay, but it proved to be a futile effort as Bakugo continued to evade and press the attack. At one point, she thought she'd had him, creating a vine wall just in time to stop him from reaching her, but he quickly rocketed straight upwards in an attempt to go over her. In a last-ditch effort to defend herself, she created a vine dome; the dome lasted about three seconds under Bakugo's barrage of explosions, at which point the blonde bomber tackled her to the ground. Sticking his open palm mere inches from her face, he fired off small sparks from his fingertips.

Sighing, Ibara tapped out, leaving Midnight to declare the result.

"Ibara Shiozaki forfeits! Katsuki Bakugo advances to the next round!"

As Bakugo stood up, intent on leaving the arena to punch something and vent his frustration, he felt Ibara's eyes on him yet again. "What. Do. You. Want."

No answer came, save for a sad expression on her face. Bakugo nearly turned to face her again... but the knowledge that he would certainly be disqualified prevented him from doing anything but snarling and storming away.

_I'm fine. I don't need anyone's help. I don't need anyone's pity. I'm fine..._

* * *

Uraraka did her best to swallow her nervousness as she stared across the arena at Iida. She had put on a decent showing in the preliminaries, but now she had to prove herself in the finals as well. Strangely enough, without the rather silly over-the-top "villain" performance or his armor, her bespectacled classmate was genuinely intimidating.

_Get it together, Ochaco,_ she reassured herself, _you've faced him before. You know his moves. He has no range game; he'll have to come to me. And that gives me the advantage... if I'm fast enough to react in time._

She breathed in and out slowly, planting her feet firmly in preparation for what would almost certainly be a right-off-the-bat charge in her direction. The seconds ticked by, the tension making each one seem like an hour... until the signal was finally given.

"**BEGIIIIIIIIN!"**

"Reciprooooo Burst!"

As predicted, Iida charged forward; the speed of that charge was such that Uraraka nearly failed to dodge in time, tossing her top in Iida's face. His reflexes proved just fast enough to put a hand in the way and toss it aside, but his need to stop in order to turn gave her more than enough time to prepare for his next attempt. _All I need is one opportunity... if I can keep dodging long enough to get used to that speed, I'll have this in the bag!_

He charged at her again, letting out another Recipro Burst; she managed to dodge once again by using her quirk to float herself over his head and land on the outside edge of the opposite side of the ring. It was now or never.

"Recipro Burst!"

_There! I've got him!_

Just as Iida reached her, she sidestepped him and reached out for his arm. _He can't stop on a dime! Now to use his momentum against him and send him flying—_

Her thoughts were interrupted by Iida grabbing her wrist and bicep, pivoting and turning before letting go to send her flying out of the ring instead. Before she knew it, she was lying on her back outside the ring, hearing Midnight declare Iida the victor.

_I failed..._

"Uraraka."

Looking up, she saw Iida's warm smile as he offered her his hand. "You did well. To be honest, you surprised me with that last move; I almost didn't notice it in time to respond. Don't be discouraged; you put on an excellent performance in this festival already, and I would be very surprised indeed if you were not noticed!"

She blinked a few times, the moisture that would have come fading at the praise. "Th-thank you, Iida."

_I failed... but he's right. I did well. I can be proud..._


	22. Breaking Point

**A/N:** _**Thanks a bunch to Huynher, my beta, who has been giving me excellent advice for several chapters and was especially helpful on this one!**_

* * *

Bakugo paced back and forth in the bathroom like a caged beast; since the match with Ibara, something in him had begun to unravel and he _hated_ it. This stupid weakness of his... no, he wasn't weak! He wasn't weak! He was strong! It was all a matter of willpower, and all he had to do was channel his rage enough. That, he was certain, he could do if he just tried hard enough. What he _couldn't_ handle was what he had overheard from the audience as he approached his seat to watch the incredibly short match between Kaminari and Todoroki, which resulted in a frozen moron. He was minding his own business when a number of comments caught his attention:

"_You saw how he seized up? I wonder what the problem is,"_

"_Not hard to figure out. He was one of the students at the USJ. To have all that happen right in front of you..."_

"_No wonder he's messed up, then. Hell, he had actual tears that second time he froze!"_

"_Yeah, poor kid..."_

The entire conversation had infuriated him—particularly the part where they completely made up shit like him crying, which he didn't do!—but it was that last comment that cut the deepest. That last comment which ran through his mind over and over again during the match to the point where he couldn't bear sitting there any longer, feeling their gaze on his back, hearing those words...

"_Poor kid..."_

He was _not_ a "poor kid"! He was Katsuki Bakugo, the strongest in Class 1-A! They had no right to talk about him that way! He didn't need their stupid pity! He didn't need anything beyond his quirk and his rage. All he had to do was focus that until the Fake's match with brainy girl and Deku's match with four-eyes were both done, then it would be his turn and he'd blow the other guy to smithereens. And this time, he wouldn't seize up. This time, he'd fucking _say it._

"Okay," he said, looking into the mirror with a grimace. "Just focus. It's all a matter of willpower! I'm stronger than this! I'M STRONGER THAN THIS!"

As he pumped himself up a few more times, he took a deep breath, channeled his fury, and shouted with all his might.

**"D—"**

A few seconds of shaking later, Bakugo smashed the mirror. It was lucky it had only been punched rather than blown up. He certainly felt like blowing up the entire room; hell, he felt as if he himself were about to explode. Good, that was the rage. That was what was needed. Just a little more...

"...d—"

The same effect occurred, but this time he couldn't even shout it. It barely came out as a whisper. It was like the word was stuck in him, refusing to leave but threatening to tear him apart from the inside out if he didn't just _spit it out._ And yet, he couldn't. He was too strong to be caught up like this! He was too strong to be this weak! This thing would _not_ stop him. He'd figure out how to break this stupid problem after his next match. Once he blasted the other guy with the full force of his anger, once he knocked that metal asshole into the stratosphere, then he'd show the world that he didn't need their damn pity. He didn't need it, because he wasn't weak. He was strong. He was strong. He was strong...

* * *

I stood across from Momo, observing her furrowed brow. She was strategizing, thinking up a million probabilities and narrowing them down. She undoubtedly remembered what happened during battle training and how she nullified my quirk; if I can't move or hit something, I have difficulty generating kinetic energy. And my quirk doesn't protect me from energy-based attacks. Two major weaknesses, one more easily exploited than the other. I'd trained hard since then, however; for one, I put a lot of effort into getting over my habit of just tanking hits, expecting my quirk to handle things for me, and learn how to dodge instinctively. I also had a couple of techniques that I could use even when immobilized, but I was hoping to save them for any future confrontations that weren't on camera. The League of Villains was still out there, and they were watching the sports festival just like everyone else; anything I used here, they'd see and probably find a counter for. Besides, I was at least eighty to ninety percent sure I wouldn't need it for this match. The only reason it wasn't a hundred percent was because this was _Momo._

_I need to close the distance before she can do anything to stop me, but she already knows that. So the first thing she'll do is try and block my path and vision with something, then lay a trap._

As soon as the match began, I ran forward, but not at full speed; I knew her quirk worked fast, and there was no way to tell if she had already had something to stop me with. As she pulled out five small grenade-like objects, I shot forward. She stopped me by producing a riot shield that covered and concealed her body.

_Blinding me to whatever she's doing,_ I thought as I tried moving to the left. As soon as I did, though, five round objects landed in my path and exploded, spreading a thick adhesive over the ground. Leaping back before I could run into them, I heard a few more explosions of the same kind behind me. As I stopped myself from landing in those, Momo tossed the shield at my face, which would have blinded me if I hadn't been prepared for that trick. The next trick caught me by surprise: a large vacuum-powered air gun aimed right at me, a few more glue grenades in her other hand.

_The air gun... she plans to use it to knock me into the glue. My quirk won't protect me from that. And even if I dodge, she's ready to throw those grenades in whatever direction I move or jump in._

Wasting no time, I charged right for her. She knew I'd do that, but she was hoping her gun would get me before I could reach her. And she would have been right, had I not done something she _didn't_ expect: I stopped in my tracks and dropped flat against the ground, minimizing the amount of surface area for the blast to push against and preventing me from being blown back. As soon as the blast was done, I launched myself forward in a spear-like fashion straight at her legs, hoping to cause her to trip. She was just quick enough to turn and fire the air gun downward, knocking me down mid-leap. Knowing I was done for if I didn't move immediately, I rolled to the side, just barely avoiding the glue grenades. Which turned out not to be, as smoke immediately began filling the immediate area. I leapt straight up and out of the smoky area, but saw no sign of her as I landed outside the smoke.

_So what exactly is her Plan B here? It can't be the same as her fight with Mei. She knows I can't see through smoke. She almost certainly knows I'm aware of the glue traps now and will be careful not to just step in them, smoke or not. So what—"_

My thoughts were interrupted by a couple of metal prongs on cords firing out of the smoke at me. Having trained my dodge reflex, I moved in time to evade them; at closer glance, they turned out to be from a taser. Suddenly, more such projectiles began firing in my direction from out of the smoke, which was slowly beginning to dissipate to reveal that Momo had made a number of tasers. _Plenty to spare,_ I thought as I dodged, _and I bet they're modified to continue giving a charge to those wires. Which would leave me with even _less_ ground to leap around and run on, while the only ground available would be immediately next to her. And there's no way she doesn't have an answer for that, too._

Not that it mattered. Getting in close was the only way I could win, and she knew it. I had to find a way to protect myself from the tasers before they could cut off all the room I had left. Suddenly, I had an idea; I began unbuttoning my uniform as I ran, pulling my arms out of its sleeves before wrapping it around my left hand and charging straight at her. She fired off another taser shot in my direction, but I batted it away with my newly-insulated hand, though just enough electricity got through to make said hand spasm a bit, forcing me to grab onto the bunched-up shirt with my right hand to keep it from falling off. Or so she probably thought as she smiled and pulled an elecrified-net gun on me. Before she could fire it, I whipped out my right hand, causing the shirt to unravel and fly in her face. Her grip on the net gun was loosened, so I knocked it out of her hands before shoving her backwards onto one of the earlier glue traps she had intended for me.

Finding herself stuck, Momo sighed as Midnight called the match in my favor. "I can't believe I didn't see that coming... nice move, Keikkun."

"You were pretty good yourself, YaoMomo," I said, trying to find some way to pull her off the glue without tearing her uniform apart. "That last move was pretty spur-of-the-moment; if I'd thought of it just half a second slower, you would have had me for sure."

In the end, it took a minute or two for the glue to dissolve on its own, at which point we bowed to each other and left the arena.

* * *

**"Coming into the ring now, the other half of the Midoriya brothers, IZUKU MIDORIYAAAAAA!"**

Izuku took a deep breath in and out to center himself as he approached the ring. This was where the real test of his newfound control would begin.

**"And his opponent, the youngest of a line of great heroes, the boy with the lightspeed legs, it's TENYA IIDAAAAAAAA!"**

Iida's face was pure stone, completely unreadable. That was worrying to Izuku. By now, Iida had likely already realized that Izuku primarily relied on his ability to read and predict his opponent's moves, and the best way to do that was to watch their eyes and their face; one could tell a lot about an opponent by their expression. The fact that Iida was obviously concealing this told Izuku that his plan of attack was likely to include unorthodox tactics and surprise maneuvers to compensate for the power difference. As far as his own quirk went, Izuku was able to get up to about four to five percent with Full Cowling, but he hadn't had to use it while fighting someone who could match that speed. Casey could go about as fast as Iida, but he took some time to build up that speed whereas Iida could reach top speed instantly. While Iida was only slightly faster than Casey, Izuku knew that in a fight even "slightly" could make a world of difference.

_Either one of us could send the other out of the ring with one move: me with my strength, him with his speed. This is going to be a battle of who lands the first—and probably last—blow. _

No sooner had the match begun than Iida charged forward at such a speed that Izuku barely had time to react; when he dodged, though, he found Iida suddenly in his face. His spectacled classmate had managed to tilt like a motorcycle, planting his hand like a brake to make a quick turn before launching ahead of Izuku to intercept. Reacting as quickly as he could, Izuku threw a punch with Full Cowling, only for Iida to simply not be there anymore, having dropped down for an engine-powered sweep kick. Izuku leapt over his opponent, but he had only just turned his head after landing in time to see Iida zig-zagging toward him, clearly trying to disguise the location of his impending attack. This time, rather than dodge, Izuku decided to meet the attack head-on with a charge of his own... but once again, Iida was just fast enough to move out of the way and flank him.

"You are fast, Midoriya. But I saw your performance in the Riot Ball match. I know precisely how fast you are and how quick your reaction time is. But there's something _I_ haven't shown _you_ yet."

With a loud whine that quickly became a roar, the engines on the back of Iida's left leg let off a blast of smoke and flame.

"RECIPRO BURST!"

The sheer power of the kick nearly took Izuku off his feet, and it was only due to a spectacularly-timed block that he wasn't sent flying out of the ring. Iida stalled in place for a moment as if tired; Izuku quickly deduced what the issue was.

_He can only use it once before the engines in his legs stall. Now's my chance!_

Charging forward as fast as he could, Izuku pulled his fist back in preparation. "SMAAAAA—"

"Nice try."

With a smirk, Iida shot forward with the engines on his other leg, driving his left knee into Izuku's gut. _I'm an idiot! Of course he only used the one leg for the burst!_

In the exact same motion as the knee thrust, in that very split second—as if it were in slow motion—Izuku could see Iida's right leg coming around for a roundhouse. Reacting on pure instinct, Izuku grabbed Iida by the ankle and began turning with the latter's own motion. As Izuku landed, he continued spinning, adding some of the power of One for All into his motions and then simply letting go of Iida's ankle. The result was not unlike an ancient slingshot, swinging around a stone before letting it go, with Iida playing the role of the stone. In the blink of an eye, Iida was sent flying out of the ring, into the arena entryway, and out the other side, landing in an unfortunate vendor's vegetable stall that was being carted by the door at that very moment by pure coincidence. The vendor's cries were quickly drowned out by the cheering crowd.

For a moment, Izuku was worried that his friend might have been injured by the landing, but upon seeing him bowing over and over again while frantically apologizing in his overly-formal tone, he breathed a sigh of relief.

* * *

Tetsutetsu grunted as yet another explosion came his way. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have been much more than annoyed by this sort of attack, but the sheer frequency and ferocity of his opponent's assault was more than enough to give even him pause. What genuinely freaked him out was Bakugo's face.

_Crap, those _eyes! _He's nuts!_

During the Riot Ball match, Tetsutetsu had gotten a brief look at Bakugo before. There was a sort of berserker energy in the latter even then, but at the time it had a certain degree of focus, something to contain and control it. Here, there was no control, no focus; instead, there was pure _chaos, _and Bakugo's eyes reflected that. This wasn't someone just trying to win a sports match, this was the look of a cornered animal with nowhere left to run and nothing to lose. Which was odd, considering said animal was currently pummeling Tetsutetsu without giving him the remotest chance of fighting back. Speaking of animal-like, the sounds Bakugo was making were little more than roars and growls and enraged shouts. No trash talk, no insults, just enraged yelling and bestial roaring.

Tetsutetsu began to feel genuine fear for the first time...

* * *

Izuku had told me to give Bakugo a chance. I had done my best to keep what he said in mind, about why Bakugo was the way he was, about the possibility that the jerk could actually change. After his freeze-up in the Riot Ball match, and his performance against Shiozaki where he had the same issue, I had begun feeling genuine sympathy for him. Obviously, the USJ incident affected him just the same as everyone else, and it wasn't difficult to figure out why he couldn't say his favorite word anymore. I was finally beginning to believe that there was enough humanity left in Bakugo for my brother to save.

Until his match with Tetsutetsu.

"RRRRAAAAAAGH! AAAAAAH! HYAAAAAAA!"

I could hear his nearly animalistic shouts from the stands and see the huge explosions he was letting off on his opponent; I couldn't hear Tetsutetsu at all, but the latter's expression said it all. He wasn't just losing, he was being _brutally_ crushed. It was one thing to see Bakugo trying to win normally, but this... this wasn't any different from his unhinged performance during the battle test, save for the even greater bestial fury on display.

_He's not just trying to win, he's trying to crush Tetsutetsu!_

The match was so brutal that I couldn't bear to watch any longer, running off to the waiting room.

"Wait! Casey!"

As I left, I heard Izuku calling out to me; I didn't look back. I'd seen all I needed to see.

* * *

"Argh," Tetsutetsu grunted. "Dude, you're crazy!..."

At the metallic teen's words, the look on Bakugo's face briefly changed to show some level of humanity... before the rage came back again, though at least this time there were words to go along with it.

"SHUT UP! I'M NOT CRAZY!"

Tetsutetsu was taken completely by surprise by the subsequent explosion as Bakugo increased his assault as the latter continued to scream.

"I'M NOT CRAZY! I'M! NOT! CRAZY!"

As Tetsutetsu was sent flying out of the ring, he could have sworn that Bakugo was shivering. Upon landing outside the ring and hearing the match be called in Bakugo's favor, Tetsutetsu looked on in shock as Bakugo collapsed to his knees, tears in his eyes.

"I'm not crazy... I'm... I'm not..."

* * *

_**If this chapter seems a little hard on Bakugo, don't worry about any author-opinion-based bashing—Casey's got a personal grudge to work out, and Bakugo needs character development. Both needs will collide in the next chapter, and when the dust clears, both of them will walk away further changed from it. But who will be the victor? You'll just have to wait!**_


	23. Shattered

**A/N: _Continued thanks to Huynher for their excellent beta-ing, feedback, and general suggestions! Keep well during this whole virus thing, everyone! Hopefully a new chapter will make self-isolation a little more bearable..._**

* * *

_I'm fine. I'm strong. I'm better than him._

Katsuki Bakugo repeated that mantra in his head as he waited to be summoned to the arena floor for his match against the Fake Midoriya. On the surface, it seemed to work; he could already feel the nerves and gut-churning sensations that had overcome him at the end of his last fight beginning to vanish. His focus had returned, and his mind was cleared of distraction. And yet, at the same time, something felt... off. He didn't know what—and he was pretty damn certain he didn't _want_ to know—but deep in the back of his head he could still feel a strange... _something_ gnawing at his thoughts.

Oh well. He'd figure out what it was after he won the tournament. For the moment, he had to focus on beating the Fake. Before the tournament began, Bakugo had made the mistake of underestimating the jerk; after the race, the riot ball match, and the previous matches, however, he slowly began to revise his initial assessment upwards from "worthless" to "_potential _challenger to be crushed". The Fake's quirk was, admittedly, pretty powerful, and meant that any strategy that involved closing in would be dangerously risky. On the other hand, the foreigner had no ranged game; like his fake brother, Casey Midoriya was nothing more than a one-trick pony who could only fight in one way. This was where Katsuki Bakugo could show his superiority: unlike his opponent, Bakugo was not limited to one method of combat and one method alone.

The more he concentrated on that advantage, the more his confidence grew to drown out the silent nagging within until he could barely recognize it. Finally, Katsuki Bakugo was back in action, ready to blow the competition away. As the clock approached the time of the match, Bakugo began to make his way to the ring entrance tunnel, his pride swelling anew with every step. Finally, he could hear the cheering of the crowd—like a grand welcoming just for him—as Present Mic began to announce the match.

* * *

**"AaaallrrrrRRIGHT, EVERYBODYYYY! It's now officially semifinal time! The first match-up of the final four ought to be super-explosive, at least if this hothead is anything to go by! From Class 1-A, KATSUKI BAKUGOOOOOO!**

**But don't you count out his opponent just yet! This kid and his brother have both been tearin' up the charts over the course of this festival, and he's not giving up without a fight any more than his brother! Also from Class 1-A, CASEY MIDORIYAAAAAA! Now, Snipe ol' buddy, what do you think of our combatants?"**

**"Heh. Finally lettin' me talk f'r a spell, huh? Well, Ah'll say one thing f'r sure: this's gonna be an uphill fight f'r Midoriya, considerin' the range advantage Bakugo's got over 'im. Th' key there is that Midoriya's quirk jes' might help 'im keep from bein' launched, if he uses it right. Either way, s'gonna be one heckuva rodeo."**

**"Assuming I somehow correctly managed to decipher my co-host's colorful fake accent, I AGREEEE! Now without further ado, LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED!"**

* * *

"You know," the Fake said as they waited for the match to start, "for some unexplained reason, my brother used to look up to you. Then he met me, and unlike him I wasn't fooled for a second by you. Every time you called him that name, every time you mocked him and insulted him and harassed him, I remembered it. I could rattle off a list of the absolute worst offenses, practically from memory."

_Don't listen to him. He's trying to get under your skin. You've _got_ this._

The Fake sighed and continued his irritating speech as he tapped his foot on the ground—as if Bakugo wouldn't notice that little detail. "Izuku stopped idolizing you a long time ago... and yet, somehow, he hasn't given up on you. After all you put him through over the years, evidently he thinks there's something salvageable in you."

That last part nearly set Bakugo off, but he kept his composure all the same. _He's worthless. He can't beat me. Don't let him get into your head and you'll crush him._

"I don't agree, and in fact I don't think there's a thing in the world that will change my mind. As far as I'm concerned, you're way closer to being a villain than you will ever be to a hero. But out of respect for Izuku—and nothing else—I'm going to stop just short of utterly humiliating you in revenge for all you've done to my brother."

No sooner had that sentence ended—punctuated by the signal to begin the match—but the Fake shot forward, using his quirk to release the tiny bit of extra stored-up energy to help him reach his top speed faster. Any ordinary opponent would have been taken by surprise at the change in speed.

But Bakugo was no ordinary opponent. Firing off a small blast toward the ground at a low angle, Bakugo flew backwards just as fast. As he landed the rocket-assisted retreating step, however, the Fake showed up immediately to his left; the initial charge had been a feint with the intent to gain a flanking opportunity. Any ordinary opponent would have been caught by this trick as well... but again, Katsuki Bakugo was not ordinary, and the Fake arrived at his flank just in time for an exploding palm to greet him. Somehow, Casey managed to pull back just in time, landing cleanly in the ring and looking only slightly singed as he shifted into a circling pattern.

"What's the matter, _Kacchan?"_ the Fake taunted; "You're not taking the initiative. All you're doing is reacting to me. What, afraid you'll lose if you press the attack?"

_Bastard's running to build up energy and keep me from hitting him,_ Bakugo realized as he worked to ignore the obvious bait; _he won't stop moving, even when striking. That's his whole crappy style, just nonstop motion to build up energy constantly and keep me guessing._

With that in mind, Bakugo used his quirk to temporarily go skyward, allowing himself to fall just long enough to fire off a ranged blast directly in Casey's path from above before using another blast to help soften and cover his landing. To his mild surprise, however, the Fake managed to avoid the former and jump immediately at his head to get around the latter. The punch delivered that way, powered by that annoying quirk, would end the match of any ordinary opponent.

But once again, _he_ was no ordinary opponent.

He was _Katsuki. Fucking. Bakugo._ And for the first time since the finals started, he was back in his groove completely, his old invincible self again. Which meant that simply twisting out of the way of the leaping attack was exactly as simple as the subsequent double explosion delivered as the moron flew through the spot he'd been in just a fraction of a second before. The result was Casey being unceremoniously knocked out of the air. The Fake somehow managed to land in a rough roll, but now he was on the defensive as the Great Bakugo began assaulting him relentlessly.

* * *

Izuku watched from the entry hall with a worried expression. Bakugo wasn't just some unthinking brute like Casey seemed to believe. On the contrary, Izuku knew full well how genuinely _cunning_ the explosive blonde could be in a fight. Granted, it was more of an instinctual cunning than the sort of calculated on-the-fly tactics that he and his brother practiced, but Bakugo definitely had an understanding of combat beyond simple brutality. Something had shaken that cunning to the point where it was almost gone—and Izuku was pretty sure he knew what that 'something' was—but now Bakugo was apparently back to normal. And Bakugo, when not in a mad rage, could be _terrifyingly_ precise. Once you were on the defensive against that, all you could do was hope for an opening and hold out as best you could.

_Come on, bro, you can do this. Hang in there..._

* * *

Bakugo was on cloud nine as his opponent was reduced to dodges and evasions in a frantic attempt to avoid getting exploded.

"Hah! Your useless quirk can't protect you from my explosions! And as long as I stay a certain distance away from you while pressing the attack, you can't fight back without getting blown the hell away... LIKE THE TRASH YOU ARE!"

The foreign bastard leapt back from one of the explosions into a three-point landing, only to be forced to move again; a few more three-point landings seemed to confirm what Bakugo had already suspected.

_He's off his balance! He's working so hard just to avoid my attacks that he needs his hands to steady him every time he jumps away!_

"So I was right. You really are just a worthless bully."

The confident smirk on the Fake's face nearly shook Bakugo's resolve, but aside from abruptly shifting directions to flank the idiot he managed to resist the taunt. Unfortunately, his opponent wasn't done talking.

"This is all you know how to do, isn't it? Attack, attack, attack. But that's your problem. All you do is blow up anything in front of you. That's what_ villains_ do."

This was getting genuinely frustrating; somehow, the Fake was still managing to avoid him, and the confident, cocky tone under the taunting wasn't helping. Bakugo ramped up the intensity a bit, but continued his assault.

"Shut up! You're not getting in my head, you bastard!"

The Fake didn't even pause for a beat, picking up where he'd left off as if he hadn't even been interrupted. "Heroes—_real _heroes—know more than just attacking. They know how to defend, how to protect. Since when have you ever given the slightest _ounce_ of thought about protecting _anyone_ or _anything?"_

"Shut up..."

"The answer is, never! You've never given it any thought at all, because it doesn't even compute for you! Heroes aren't just crazy berserkers who blow up everything in sight!"

"SHUT UP!"

_That word _echoed in Bakugo's ears, finally shattering his calm.

"Shut up, loser! I'm not crazy! You hear me? I'm! Not! Crazy!"

The Fake went for another three-point landing before leaping off again. "Could've fooled me, _Kacchan._ No, I think you are. I think you're just another mad bomber. One of these days you're going to blow someone up for real, and you won't even care one bit—!"

Bakugo nearly managed to shut the bastard up with a massive double-handed explosion applied directly to the face when that last sentence shot through him like a bullet. He froze again, but this time the pause seemed to last an eternity as images flooded his mind unwanted.

_Shattered ice and blood and brains_

_His head is gone, crumbling away like a bleeding snowcone_

_I didn't mean_

_I just said_

_I didn't mean actually—_

The images that held him hostage vanished as Casey delivered a clothesline to his gut before attempting to perform a quirk-assisted hip toss. Mercifully, the images finally released Bakugo just in time to allow him to shift his weight out of the attack and grab the Fake by the neck with one hand, the other shoved an inch from his worthless nose.

"DON'T YOU SAY ONE MORE WORD, YOU WORTHLESS FUCKING BASTARD!"

He was about to let loose when the look on his opponent's face caught his eye. Gone was the confidence and condescension, replaced with something more akin to shock. Not fearful shock, but the sort of shock that comes with seeing or realizing something totally unexpected. The shock faded a bit before slowly being replaced by something else—something far worse than condescension.

_No. I'm better than you. I don't need—_

Out of the corner of his eye, Bakugo happened to see that same expression on a face in the crowd. And another face, and another, and another, until he realized that the entire stadium was looking at him. Not in fear, not in anger, not in condescension, but in that one thing that had driven him to near insanity in the match against the plant girl.

Pity.

"Stop it..."

The faces in the crowd seemed to almost deepen.

"Stop it! Don't you... don't you dare!"

Even the Fake had the expression full-on now.

"DON'T YOU DARE PITY ME! I DON'T NEED YOUR PITY, DAMMIT—_AUGH!"_

A headbutt interrupted him and sent him reeling.

"Wow... you really _were_ shaken up by the USJ, weren't you? Is that the look _I_ had back then? And you never did talk to Principal Nezu, I bet..."

Bakugo, still dazed from the strike, swung blindly in the direction of the talkative blurry figure who moved away with a leap. As he shook his head clear of the fog, he noticed a small pebble in the Fake's hand.

"Fun fact: when kinetic energy is stored in an object without being released—like, say, a bowstring being pulled—it's called potential energy. But all you need to do to release it is to jostle it a bit in the right way. I was hoping to save this for later, but I guess I've got no choice..."

Without another word, he flung the pebble at a spot on the ground that Bakugo only barely recognized as one of the places the Fake had made a three-point landing on before.

"Kinetic Mine."

In spite of the stated name, there was no explosion, at least not of fire; instead, it was as if the ring itself—specifically, a number of spots in the ring along a straight line from his direction, as well as a few other spots to his left and right—simply flung themselves apart violently with a loud 'CRACK' that rippled forward along the line like a freight train, sending him flying out of the ring.

Bakugo activated his quirk just in time to avoid landing out-of-bounds, and rocketed toward the ring... right into the waiting fist of his opponent.

Before he knew it, he was lying flat on his back, unable to move or think because his whole world had shattered around him.

_I... am I really... weak...?_


	24. Breaking Free

**A/N: _I'm alive, and so is this fic! The pandemic has forced me into isolation—which would normally give me plenty of opportunity to write—but sadly my creativity is hampered somewhat by the stresses brought on by the current situation. I'm doing the best I can to push through, however, and hopefully this thing will blow over before the year's end. Stay safe, stay healthy, wear a mask, wash your hands—and above all, don't give up hope!_**

* * *

I waited for the match to start with a mixture of anticipation and terror. The anticipation came from my knowledge that the fight between Izuku and Todoroki in canon was already an impressive bout, and with Izuku having access to Full Cowling it would likely be even more impressive. The terror came from the fact that, while Izuku wouldn't have to break his fingers to win this time, Todoroki was still an overwhelmingly powerful combatant. The part that had me _truly _torn, however, was the knowledge that if my brother won, I would have to fight him in the final match of the sports festival.

_I know you can win, Izuku. Just don't break yourself in the process; I'll be waiting for you in the final round._

* * *

**"You've seen him and his brother strut their stuff throughout this festival, and now he's determined to make the final match a sibling rivalry: it's the green-haired phenom, _IZUKU MIDORIYAAAAAA!"_**

Toshinori looked down towards the arena floor from his seat. Soon, his chosen successor would face his most difficult opponent yet in the festival; in the process, his developing skills with One for All would truly be put to the test. He thought back to when he first met Izuku, the weak but determined child with the heart of a true hero. Now, though, Midoriya had truly begun to come into his own, having changed and grown so very much in such a short amount of time. Thus far, his performance in the festival was everything either of them could have hoped for in a debut; the opening speech that Izuku gave, the impeccable skill and speed in the obstacle course, and the cooperation and leadership displayed in the riot ball match all coming together to show the country his worth. Now, having dominated in his previous matches, it was time for an opponent who could potentially push Izuku to his limits.

_You've come so far, Izuku Midoriya. You truly are meant for the spotlight. Keep it up and show the world what you're made of!_

* * *

**"And his opponent, who's instantly flattened every challenger he's faced so far, the son of the legendary number two hero Endeavor: the icy-hot wonder, _SHOTO TODOROKIIIIII!"_**

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the stadium, Endeavor glared down at the ring. Somewhere, All-Might was watching this match; of that, he was certain. This Izuku Midoriya brat had "All-Might's Apprentice" written all over him. There was no way that the smiling fool would miss the chance to see his little pet project fight. But the fool wouldn't be smiling much longer, not when _his_ creation froze, burned, and crushed the pitiful green-haired whelp All-Might had chosen. The thought nearly put a smile on his face; the 'symbol of peace', that moron who undeservingly held the number one spot, would watch as a superior specimen humiliated his apprentice for the world to see. In fact, the only thing preventing Endeavor from grinning was the knowledge that his own creation had chosen to defy him. No, not merely defy, but to actively rebel! How dare Shoto refuse the destiny he was created for! Endeavor had put far too much effort into forging the perfect weapon that would bring his rival's ambitions crashing down. And so it was that Endeavor left his own box seats and stood at the railing overlooking the arena floor, ready to send his creation a silent message should Shoto continue to rebel.

_Do not disappoint me, Shoto..._

* * *

Shoto gazed across the floor at his opponent. Izuku Midoriya's face was almost a brick wall, the only true expressiveness being his piercing, focused stare. Clearly, when Midoriya insisted that he would hold nothing back, he meant every word. A treacherous voice in Shoto's mind suggested returning the favor; after all, his opponent had proven himself a powerful competitor, and any fight against him would definitely be an uphill battle. Even so, Shoto pushed that voice as far down as he could. There was only one thing that mattered, and one thing alone—humiliating his bastard of a father. It didn't matter what Midoriya's quirk brought to the table, it would end the same way: buried under a glacier as the old man watched in impotent fury.

"Todoroki," said Midoriya, his face still as cold as stone, "I know you think you have to prove something to your dad. But you don't. If you focus on him, you'll lose."

Shoto almost found himself considering those words, but he shook them off. _No. I'll win without my fire. I can do this._

_**"****BEGIN!"**_

Shoto didn't waste time with a verbal response, instead replying with a blast of ice straight at Izuku; to his dismay, Midoriya leapt sideways, dodging it with ease... and upon landing, stood where he was, crossing his arms contemptively. When it became apparent that his opponent had no intention of moving again, Shoto fired off another blast, which was dodged once more. As before, his opponent did nothing to take advantage of the miss. _His mistake,_ Todoroki mused; the two blasts may have missed, but now Izuku Midoriya was in between two very high walls of ice, the second blast curving over and connecting with the wall made by the first to create a narrow tunnel. Without hesitation, Shoto sent a third blast—far more powerful than the other two—with the intention of filling the tunnel and ending the match instantly.

And then the impossible happened. As the blast surged forward, Izuku held out his hand and flicked his finger... creating a massive gust of air that completely shattered the advancing wave of ice. Todoroki gritted his teeth and braced himself for the counterattack... but none came. Looking up, he saw his opponent standing right where he'd been at the very start of the match, crossing his arms again.

"What are you doing? Aren't you going to fight back?"

"No," replied Midoriya, his face still blank. "I refuse."

With a growl, Todoroki tried again, this time with an even larger wave of ice, only for it to be rebuffed with another finger-flick. Once again, Midoriya remained stationary, staring right at him.

"That won't work, Todoroki."

"Shut up and_ fight me!"_

Another glacier surged forward. Another blast of wind shattered it. And still his opponent refused to budge.

"Fight back, dammit! Start taking this seriously!"

"Not until you do, Todoroki. If you want me to fight you, stop holding back."

Clenching his fists in growing anger, Todoroki decided to try a different tactic and surfed forward on an ice wave, sending dozens of frozen shards at the green-haired boy. To Todoroki's shock and dismay, Midoriya shot up _through the roof of the frozen tunnel_, breaking out with zero effort before landing on the opposite side of the ring. Wheeling around to try again, Todoroki cursed under his breath as his infuriating opponent dodged and sidestepped everything that was thrown at him, not once taking his gaze off of Todoroki.

"If you don't fight back, Midoriya, you're going to lose—"

"And if I do, _you _will."

Something about that statement stopped Todoroki in his tracks.

"You can't win, Todoroki," Midoriya continued. "In fact, with the way you're currently fighting, beating you would be _easy_ for me. You're starting to slow down; using nothing but ice is putting a strain on you. Why should I even bother?"

"Shut up! I don't have to listen to—"

"Yes you do!" Izuku snapped. "I get it, you hate your dad. You have every right. But you aren't proving anything to anyone like this, except that you're unwilling to fight seriously! Why humiliate yourself like this, just to spite him? You're better than this!"

Todoroki tried to shut Midoriya up with another blast of ice, but as the latter predicted it was weaker than before, to the point where all it took was a couple of steps to the side to avoid it.

Izuku continued glaring at him. "Stop holding back, Todoroki! Use your fire!"

"No," Shoto replied defiantly; "I refuse! I'd rather lose than rely on that bastard's quirk!"

"IT'S NOT HIS QUIRK, IT'S YOURS!"

Something inside Shoto's soul shook at that. "What...?"

"Don't you get it? The only thing making it 'his' quirk is your refusal to use it! Or do you seriously think anyone in this stadium thinks of it as if it were some borrowed thing? It's yours, not his! You haven't hit me once, Todoroki! If you want to break free of him, you have to stop letting your hatred of him control you! You have to stop holding back! So what's it going to be? Are you going to just let your entire life revolve around him, or your feelings about him, or are you going to live for yourself for once? Forget him! _I'm_ your opponent! So stop holding back... AND HIT ME WITH EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT!"

A hundred memories of painful beatings flew through Shoto's mind. A hundred memories of cruel words followed. A hundred memories of his tears, and a thousand of his mother's. All of these images piled up on each other, slowly forming into one, crushing realization: Izuku Midoriya was absolutely correct.

_That bastard is still dominating me, even when I'm fighting him._

Shoto sighed and steeled himself.

_...No more._

With a mighty effort, he began focusing on the opponent in front of him, removing all thought of his father from his mind as the frost covering the right side of his body began to dissipate; at the same time, he felt his left grow hotter and hotter, the air around it visibly distorting as it heated up. And as his mind centered on Midoriya, blocking out all distractions, a massive gout of flame erupted from his left hand, spreading across that entire side of his body to become a raging inferno. With the flames balancing out the ice from his right, Todoroki finally unleashed his quirk in all its unbridled fury.

"Alright, Midoriya! You wanted me? HERE I AM!"

For the first time since the start of the match, Midoriya's stony expression broke, shifting into an excited smile. "Nice to finally meet you, Todoroki." With a crackle of green lightning, Izuku shot forward like a bullet, forcing Todoroki to block the advance with a wall of fire as he surfed out of the way on a wave of ice. Midoriya turned to follow, but was forced once again to stop as shards of ice flew at him, narrowly avoiding the pillar of flames that descended on him shortly after. Izuku briefly managed to close the distance again, but was rebuffed by a fiery fist swiping at his face. The two combatants chased each other around the ring, evenly matched, but as things progressed it was clear that Todoroki's reserves were greater than that of his opponent.

_You can't keep this up forever, Izuku,_ Shoto thought,_ and you're smart enough to see that. What's your next move?_

Deciding not to wait for whatever trick Midoriya had up his sleeve, Todoroki surged forward, holding a wall of flames in front of him to shield himself as he charged straight for his opponent. Suddenly, his vision was blocked by a thick cloud of steam. Shoto had only a second to realize what had happened—obviously, Izuku had thrown a chunk of broken ice at the fire shield—before he spied the latter mere inches to his right. He shifted his body to meet the attack, but it was too late; a superpowered clothesline slammed into his midsection, sending him out of the ring and ending the match.

As Midnight called the bout in favor of Izuku, the boy in question walked over to him and extended a hand with a warm smile.

"Thank you, Midoriya."

"You don't need to thank me," Izuku replied. "Just don't forget what I said. And... if you ever need help—if there's anything else I can do to free you from him once and for all—don't ever hesitate to ask."

With that, Shoto walked back into the entrance tunnels; as he did, he spied his father glaring furiously at him.

"You miserable failure! What were you thinking, Shoto?! If you hadn't been fooling around, that brat wouldn't have stood a chance!"

Something about his father's face caught his attention.

"SHOTO! Are you even listening to me? You failed, and now—"

"Heh."

Endeavor blinked. "...What was that?"

"Hahaha."

"Shoto, what is the meaning of—"

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

He couldn't stop laughing. _This_ was the man who'd dominated him his whole life?

"Stop that at once!" Endeavor snapped. "There is nothing funny about this!"

"Oh, but there is, father," Shoto said, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. "And it's you. I spent this whole time focused on you, but the look on your face... I don't need to surpass you. I already have. Not in raw power, not yet, but in everything that matters? You aren't even worth thinking about. You never were."

Shoto ignored the look of utter disbelief on Endeavor's face and continued walking. For the first time in his life, he felt truly free.


	25. Siblings, Rivalry

**A/N:****_Thanks as always to the excellent Huynher for his beta-ing skills! Enjoy the closer for this arc!_**

* * *

Inko found herself holding her breath as the final match was announced. She honestly did not have a clue what she ought to have been feeling; on one hand, her boys were about to fight each other in front of the entire country. On the other, they were about to show just how strong and brave they were _in front of the entire country._ It was a strange mixture of fear and pride, all in one; complicating matters further was that—as a mother—she could not possibly choose a side. She was proud of both her darling boys, too proud to put into words. So rather than speak or fret, she chose to watch and pray that they would both be okay.

**"And now, the moment you've all been waiting for! It's time to start the final fight of the festival!"**

_My baby boys... you've come so far. Good luck to both of you._

* * *

**"He cannonballed through robots, he scored the final goal in the Riot Ball match, and he crushed the competition in the tournament! Now here he is, ready to rock and roll! Ladies and gentlemen, CASEY MIDORIYAAAAAAAAAAA!"**

I clenched my fists reflexively as I walked through the entry hall towards the ring. Izuku had made it—just as I knew he would. But pride in my brother would have to wait; for the moment, he was my opponent. Even without considering our relationship, though, fighting him wasn't going to be anything remotely easy; not only did he possess One for All, he had enough control over Full Cowling to blast away Todoroki's attacks. I had been under the assumption that he was still restricted to 5%, but obviously he had been hiding his full strength just as I had.

_I can't assume anything about his current punching power. I have to fight under the assumption that he can potentially fill me up with one blow. I doubt he's _that_ strong yet, but no point in risking it with One for All. Problem is, I can't beat him without rushing in... and he'll probably do his best to grapple me, too. Hit-and-run is the only solution here, with Kinetic Mine for traps and distractions._

Truth be told, I had one more trick up my sleeve—but I had already revealed Kinetic Mine on television, and I definitely didn't want to risk giving away my only other secret attack if I couldn't help it. Even so, I had no illusions—this was going to be an uphill fight no matter what. With that in mind, I took in a deep breath and stepped out onto the field, approaching the ring.

* * *

**"But if Casey wants that gold medal, he'll need to get through one final test: his own brother! This kid has wrecked the robots in the race, he rocked in Riot Ball, and tore through this tournament like no tomorrow! Give a big round of applause for IZUKU MIDORIYAAAAAAAAAAA!"**

Izuku steeled his nerves as best he could. He had come a long way, and he had no intention of backing down now—not even for Casey. Not that his brother would accept any less than his best.

_Kinesis is a lot more flexible than One for All. That's his advantage. I can hit top speed a little faster than him, but odds are he charged up a bit before the match to give him a quick boost right away. And our top speeds are about the same, so I can't rely on being quicker. His quirk doesn't protect him against grappling, but as much as he needs to close in to attack he's not going to stay in range long enough for me to grab him if he can help it. I'll have to be patient and wait for an opportunity to hit him with a smash, or otherwise get him in a hold of some sort._

Having settled on the only strategies available to him, Izuku strode forward into the center of the ring, looking his brother in the eye, careful not to show any sign of fear or hesitation. The gaze was returned, but no words were exchanged; their eyes said all the words their mouths could not.

_Bring it on, bro._

**"BEGIN!"**

* * *

"Holy cow," Kaminari exclaimed, "Look at them go! Already zooming around at top speed..."

The rest of 1-A, save for Bakugo, watched the display in united suspense. None of them had seen the explosive blonde since his match with Casey, but their worry was quickly replaced with shock and amazement at the subsequent match between Izuku and Shoto. Now, at the final match of the festival, it was as if the center of the ring was the center of the world, and all their thoughts were on the fight unfolding in front of them.

Kirishima frowned in slight confusion. "Huh? Why aren't they attacking each other? They're just running and leaping around the ring..."

"They're evenly matched in more ways than one, and have trained together enough that they know each others' moves," Iida remarked. "So for the moment, they're probing each other's defenses, waiting for an opportunity to strike."

"Wh-who do you think will win? If they're as even as they look..." Uraraka gazed down, trying her best to follow the fast-paced action below.

Tokoyami nodded. "Hm. Impossible to predict..."

"Hang on," Momo said, peering down. "I think Keikkun may be setting up those traps that he used on Bakugo. Look how he keeps doing handsprings from time to time... it's just a hunch, but I think that's how he sets them."

Jiro gave a look of agreement. "Sounds about right. Not that Izukkun wouldn't see that, though..."

* * *

The green-haired boy in question had, in fact, seen exactly that.

_Kinetic Mines,_ Izuku thought,_ and he's making sure to spread them around. He wants to restrict my movement, but at the same time wants to leave himself space to run around as well. But that also means he has to keep storing up that energy he's building up. He can't get rid of it without attacking, and he's not ready to do that yet._

Deciding not to give his brother the chance to strike first, Izuku found a decent opening and went for it, darting in for a punch just as Casey was landing after a big leap in the hopes of knocking his brother up to full. Casey managed to spin out of the way just in time, causing a small crater to form where the punch connected with the arena floor. In the same motion as the spin, Casey came around with a kick aimed directly at Izuku's head. Ducking out of the way, Izuku attempted a retaliatory blow only for Casey to leap away again and attempt a flanking maneuver. This time, the latter connected with a punch that sent Izuku reeling; it was only Izuku's memorization of the location of the Kinetic Mines that saved him from staggering right into one of them. But now he was on the defensive, and Casey quickly began pressing the attack a bit more to capitalize on that disadvantage.

Izuku responded with a feint in the hopes of drawing his brother into grapple range; this time, he managed to catch Casey by surprise, grabbing the latter by the wrist and attempting to pull him into an arm bar hold.

"Nice try..."

Suddenly, Casey twisted his body around and _threw_ Izuku into the ground at a low angle, causing him to roll right into one of the Kinetic Mines. Izuku braced himself just in time to avoid getting blown out of the ring by the resulting shockwave of debris flinging itself apart.

"I practiced plenty of escape techniques, Izuku. I've gotten pretty good at them, too—OOF!"

Casey grunted in pain as a counter-punch by Izuku sent him back a bit. By the mere fact that the punch did damage, Izuku knew his brother was at full capacity—and from the bit of bruising forming on him, just a little bit over. Before Izuku could follow up, though, Casey responded by smashing the arena floor with a punch strong enough to crater a decent chunk of the ring and even set off a few more Kinetic mines around it in the process.

_Now that he's gotten rid of that excess energy, he can get back to attacking me. But at the same time, he's been forced to get rid of all his... traps..._

Izuku looked at the ground, then at a spot near the edge of the ring that was untouched by the powerful eruption caused by his brother. Thinking quickly, he ran towards the latter as fast as he could.

* * *

I'd been absolutely right to avoid getting hit by Izuku as much as possible, considering how much that punch of his legitimately _hurt._ I may not have been polka-dotted like I was after getting hit by the zero-pointer, but I could tell that I had been set over my capacity more than even Izuku likely anticipated. I didn't like having to get rid of all the traps I had set for him, but at the very least I had enough room in the tank that I would be able to take maybe one punch from my brother without needing a stretcher after the match. As the debris cloud from my mega-punch cleared up, I saw Izuku running towards an undamaged part of the ring.

_No way you forgot that was one of my Mines, Izuku. What are you up to?_

Determined not to let him get there to enact whatever plan he had in mind, I charged after him... only for him to spin around to face me and throw a pebble of debris at the edge of the massive crater I'd caused. The spot where it landed flung itself apart right in my face, blinding me with dust from my own trap.

_Dammit! TWO mines! Dumb luck that one didn't go off with the rest!_

I didn't have any time to shake the dust from out of my eyes before Izuku caught my arm again. I twisted around as before to throw him... only for him to do the exact same maneuver and slam me down right onto the last remaining Kinetic Mine near the edge.

_He reversed the reversal?!_

The resulting shockwave, combined with our momentum, sent us both flying out-of-bounds. I felt my back hit the grass, and looked over to see Izuku lying next to me.

**"WHOOOOOOAAAAA! Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like _both_ brothers are out of the ring! And they landed at about the same time! Let's go to the slow-motion replay..."**

Gazing up at the massive screen hanging above us, I watched the last move in amazement and suspense... and saw myself landing just barely half a second before Izuku.

**"You saw it right there, sports fans! The winner of the match by ring-out—and the winner of the UA Sports Festival—is none other than IZUKU! MIDORIYAAAAAAAAAAA!"**

The crowd erupted into massive applause as my brother and I staggered unevenly to our feet and embraced.

* * *

Bakugo watched the award ceremony on a TV set in the waiting area, still not knowing what to think or feel. Technically, he shared third place—shared!_ Third _place!_—_with Todoroki. But he couldn't. At first, he thought about just leaving altogether, but something made him stop and watch the ceremony in private. Seeing the two brothers embrace, even on the victory podium, stirred something in Bakugo that he was pretty sure he didn't want to feel. Somehow, the sight of Deku _inviting_ Casey up to the first place platform and _sharing_ the gold and silver with him made it feel worse.

Idiots. Who shares victory? _Why_ would _anyone_ do that? Wasn't the whole point of winning to prove you were better? No matter how much he tried, Bakugo simply couldn't wrap his head around it.

_It doesn't matter. They're up there... and I'm down here. Hiding. Like a weakling..._

"Young Bakugo."

The blonde turned around to see Principal Nezu standing behind him with two cups of tea. "What do _you _want..."

"Well," the rodent-like creature said cheerily, "for starters, I'd like to offer you some tea. You look like you could use it."

Seeing no reason to refuse and feeling no real motivation to do much of anything at the moment, Bakugo begrudgingly accepted the offered cup and sat down at the table in the center of the room. "So you gave me your damn tea. What now?"

Nezu smiled warmly. "That's up to you, Young Bakugo. You look like you have quite a bit on your mind."

"Yeah..."

"Would you like to share, perhaps?"

Bakugo scoffed and averted his gaze. "Why? What's there to say? I lost."

"You didn't lose," the principal responded calmly, "You won third place. Plenty of people didn't make it even that far."

A snarl escaped him. "That's not it! Don't you get it? It's not first place! It was first, or nothing!"

"And why, may I ask, is that?"

"Because the best heroes don't lose! The best heroes win! They _always_ win! All my life, people have been telling me that I'd be the best, over and over and over again! And if I'm not, then they'll know they were wrong!" Bakugo growled, his fists shaking as he clenched them. "If I'm not the best... then... then I'm nothing."

A pause hung over the room. "Ah," Nezu chuckled, "It seems you had more to say than you thought."

Somehow, that stopped Bakugo in his tracks. It felt like he'd let out a breath he'd been holding in since he got in to UA, but there was still so much more inside—he could feel it. And he didn't know what the hell to do about it.

The principal smiled at him again. "Tell you what: why don't we sit here for a bit, and you can take your time telling me more? It's not like you have anywhere else to be right now."

On any other day, under any other circumstances, Bakugo would have told the oversized talking rat-thing to go to hell, principal or not. But something kept him rooted to his chair, his eyes locked over his cup of tea. Somehow, he felt something inside him break.

_I guess I _am_ weak..._


End file.
